Preamble

The House met at a Quarter before Three of the clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

Manchester Corporation Bill (by Order),

Read a second time, and committed.

Ordered, That it be an Instruction to the Committee on the Bill that they have power to inquire into and report upon the sufficiency of the present sources of water supply of the Manchester Corporation to meet their obligations and into and upon any other sources available for such supply, and to consider whether power should be given to the corporation to to make use of Haweswater in addition to the use which they already have of Thirlmere; and, if so, how far and under what conditions, and what rights the local authorities of the districts situated between Haweswater and Manchester should have to participate in the water supplies of the corporation from the Lake District.—[Mr. Sugden.]

NEW WRIT.

For the Borough of Kingston-upon-Hull (Central Division), in the room of Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Mark Sykes, baronet, deceased.—[Lord Edmund Talbot.]

Oral Answers to Questions — PEACE CONFERENCE.

IPEK AND DJAKOVA.

Lieutenant-Colonel W. GUINNESS: 1.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has any information that the Serbs are now attacking the Albanians in Ipek and Djakova; whether this district, although inhabited by a large Albanian majority, was allotted to
Montenegro in 1913 but never occupied by that country; whether the Serbs have been warned to desist from their attack; and whether the ultimate possession of this disputed territory will be reconsidered at the Paris Conference?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Cecil Harmsworth): Reports have reached His Majesty's Government of the serious situation in the district mentioned by the hon. and gallant Member. These reports are now engaging the attention of the Allied Governments and the Peace Delegates in Paris. I understand it to be the case that no attempt has hitherto been made to occupy the district. I do not think it would be in the public interest to say anything more for the present.

Oral Answers to Questions — DEPARTMENT OF OVERSEAS TRADE (STAFF AND EXPENSES).

Mr. ROSE: 2.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department if he can make a statement detailing as regards the Department of Overseas Trade the number of part- and full-time officials and employés of that Department, the amount expended for salaries, fees, expenses, office rents, and upkeep for the entire establishment, including branch and provincial offices as well as for headquarters staffs; and whether any measures are being taken, or are in contemplation, for drastically reducing the staffs and expense of the Department?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND (Department of Overseas Trade): I will circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT the statement desired by the hon. Member, with the exception of office rents, for information in respect of which he should apply to the First Commissioner of Works.
With reference to the last part of the question the object of the Department, which controls the commercial intelligence services abroad and exercises no functions restrictive of trade, is to assist the export trade of the United Kingdom; it is obvious, therefore, that as the measures of control exercised for war purposes by other Departments diminish, the operations of the Department of Overseas Trade must develop. The work during the first two months of the present year shows an increase of approximately 100 per cent. as compared with the corresponding portion
of 1918. It is neither possible or desirable, therefore, drastically to reduce the staff and expense of the Department if adequate assistance is to be given to the export trade, though the hon. Member may rest assured that every effort is taken to prevent waste.
I may add for the information of the hon. Member, that a sub-Committee of the Government Committee on the Staffing of Public Departments has recently investigated conditions in the Department of Overseas Trade, and I invite him to visit the offices of the Department and examine its work for himself.

The following is the Statement promised:

Return of Headquarters Staff and Expenditure

Number.
—
Approximate annual coat at present rate.



£


126*
Salaried staff
38,050


307
Weekly staff
33,635


34
Messengers
3,700


7
Charwomen
430


—
Incidental expenditure
1,450


474

£77,265


*Note.—The salaried staff includes two officers on Army pay and one part-time Commercial Adviser. There are no other part-time officials or employés.


The Department is accommodated in various suites of offices in the City and elsewhere in London; there are no branch or provincial offices.

Sir J. RANDLES: Is it not a fact that the accommodation is grossly, seriously inadequate and detrimental to the health of those who are employed on the premises which you now occupy?

Sir A. STEEL-MAITLAND: The question of accommodation is under consideration at this moment.

Oral Answers to Questions — NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS.

OFFICERS' WIDOWS.

Colonel YATE: 3.
asked the Pensions Minister what decision has been arrived at on the question of the payment of gratuities to the widows of officers who have died of disease?

The MINISTER of PENSIONS (Sir Laming Worthington Evans): I have con-
sidered this, matter most carefully, and I do not propose to make any alteration in the present practice.

Colonel YATE: 4.
asked the Pensions Minister for what reason in the grant of an alternative pension to the widow of a deceased officer the widow with children is penalised in comparison with the widow without children; and whether, in the event of the subsequent death of a widow with children who had availed herself of an alternative pension, the children would be deprived of their own separate pensions?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: The purpose of the alternative pension is, within limits, to place the deceased officer's family in the position they were in before the War, having regard to his earnings at that time. If the widow who has elected to receive an alternative pension should die, the children would thereafter receive the ordinary pensions provided by the Warrant.

ALTERNATIVE PENSIONS.

Mr. DOYLE: 5.
asked the Pensions Minister whether, in view of the fact that a parent is not eligible to receive an alternative pension, a modification of the Regulations may be considered whereby the parent of an officer or soldier who is in receipt of the highest rate of pension may be awarded an increase to bring the pension up to the amount of proved pre-war dependence, provided that such increased rate is not in excess of any alternative pension that might be awarded to a widow?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: I do not consider that an amendment of the Warrant is necessary. The Special Grants Committee have power to supplement pensions under their regulations in special circumstances, and they are prepared to deal with such cases as are indicated in this question where there is need and where permanent provision, or what was intended to be permanent provision, for the parent was made by the son.

SUPPLEMENTARY GRANT.

Mr. DOYLE: 6.
asked the Pensions Minister whether, in view of the assurance given in the House that South Africans enlisting in British units would have their pensions supplemented so as to bring them up to South African rates, he will consider
the case of Mr. A. H. Bulteel, who landed in England on the 9th December, 1914, enlisted in the 24th Royal Fusiliers on the 21st December, 1914, and was discharged on the 13th March, 1918, with 60 per cent, pension, and whose claim for increase has been refused by the South African Records Office?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: Mr. Bulteel is receiving the full amount of pension to which he is entitled under the Royal Warrant, and the question of supplementation can only be dealt with by the South African Government. From inquiry I have made I find that his application for a supplementary grant cannot be traced in the South African Records Office in Victoria Street, and I am informed that if a fresh application is made to that office, they will be glad to consider it.

FUNERAL EXPENSES.

Lieutenant-Colonel Sir S. HOARE: 7.
asked the Pensions Minister whether local pensions committees are only authorised to pay £5 to meet the expenses of indigent discharged soldiers, their wives, and dependants; whether, in the event of the expenses exceeding this amount, the expenses have to be met by the Poor Law guardians; and whether, if this is the case., local committees can be authorised to incur a greater expenditure in order that no Poor Law taint should be attached to the funerals of discharged soldiers and their dependants?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: I have not yet been able to make any satisfactory arrangements.

SOLDIERS' WIDOWS (BUSINESS GRANTS).

Mr. HURD: 10.
asked the Pensions Minister if he will state what scheme, if any, he has now in contemplation under which the widows of soldiers who died on active service may receive State Grants to enable them to make a start in business?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: I have no scheme in contemplation for assisting widows by means of State Grants other than their pensions, but assistance can be given to them from the King's Fund on application through the local war pensions committees. If any Government scheme is contemplated it will presumably be administered by the Civil Liabilities Committee, which is now under the Ministry of Labour.

CAPITAL ADVANCES TO OFFICERS AND MEN.

Sir SAMUEL SCOTT: 49.
asked the Prime Minister whether he is aware that the delay in announcing the terms upon which the Government propose to make provision for the advance of capital to officers and soldiers is preventing them coming to a decision, is creating dissatisfaction, and causing loss to this country by many men going to settle abroad where better facilities are offered; and when the Government will be able to announce their proposals?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of LABOUR (Mr. Wardle): The Prime Minister has asked me to reply to this question. I trust that the hon. and gallant Member is misinformed as to the effect which has been produced by any delay which has unavoidably occurred in the publication of the scheme referred to in his question. The reply which I am making to-day to the hon. Member for West Woolwich will, I hope, satisfy the hon. and gallant Member that progress is being made in the matter.

Sir S. SCOTT: I have not been misinformed as to the effect of the delay.

EXTRA PENSIONS.

Mr. GRATTAN DOYLE: 106.
asked the Secretary of State for War whether in view of the fact that men who won commissioned rank during the War but who were drawing pension for service in the ranks prior to this War do not receive officer's pension but revert to their pre-war pension on discharge, he will consider granting an extra pension to such men?

The SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Mr. Churchill): My hon. Friend is of course referring to ex-soldiers who have received temporary commissions. As such they have continued to draw their soldier pension during the War in addition to their pay, and they receive on demobilisation the full gratuity given to temporary officers. It is not contemplated to increase their pensions.

OFFICERS' GRATUITIES.

Major Earl WINTERTON: 109.
asked the Secretary of State for War if he is aware of the difficulty experienced by officers in obtaining through the Army agents any clear account of the gratuity due to them on discharge; and if he can
simplify the procedure so that an officer is sent a cheque direct by the Army paymaster immediately he takes his discharge?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I am not aware of the existence of any general difficulty in this connection. The gratuity is credited by the Army agents to the officer's account on receipt of his protection and clearance certificates, and I understand that the agents send the officer a full statement as soon as his account has been finally made up to date of discharge. No Army paymaster is concerned with officers' pay, and it is not considered possible to introduce any simpler procedure.

Earl WINTERTON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in the case of one agent, Messrs. Cox, owing to the inadequacy of their staff, it is impossible to obtain an answer under ten days, and very often it is three weeks, and then they generally send the wrong one?

Mr. CHURCHILL: That is the result of an enormous pressure of work.

Earl WINTERTON: Would the right hon. Gentleman consider the advisability of giving them clerical assistance or interviewing the heads of this business on the matter, as complaints are widespread amongst officers demobilised that they cannot get the gratuities paid or any explanation?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I have no doubt this conversation which has taken place in the House will draw their attention to the matter.

RE-ENLISTMENT BOUNTY.

Major BARKER: 110.
asked the Secretary of State for War whether time expired men upon re-enlisting received a bounty of £15, whilst men whose time expired while prisoners of war are denied this bonus; and whether he will sympathetically consider a change in the Regulations, so that these men who have suffered for their country may not be penalised from the fact that they were taken prisoners?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I understand my hon. and gallant Friend to refer to the bounty paid to men compulsorily held to serve under the Military Service Acts, after they had completed their term of enlistment. The bounty is not payable
except to men so retained; and under the Act of 1916 prisoners of war were expressly exempted from such retention.

FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE (SPECIAL HARDSHIP).

Sir KINGSLEY WOOD: 113.
asked the Secretary of State for War whether the Regulations governing the scheme for financial assistance to demobilised officers and men in cases of special hardship arising from military service have yet been published; how many applications have yet been received under such scheme; and in how many cases has assistance been rendered?

Mr. WARDLE: I have been asked to reply to this question. The general outlines of the Government scheme were described in the reply which was given to the hon. Member for Bermondsey on the 13th February. The Regulations will be published, I hope, in a few days.
The scheme will apply to officers and men (other than retired officers recalled to service) whether married or unmarried, who joined the forces on or after the 4th August, 1914, or are members of the Territorial Force, and were ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom before joining the forces and have been demobilised from His Majesty's forces.
Assistance will be given to such officers and men in cases in which serious hardship would be caused to them on account of their inability, after demobilisation, to meet their financial obligations by reason of their having undertaken military service.
The obligations in respect of which assistance in suitable cases may be granted are: Rent, interest, and instalments payable in respect of loans (including mortgages), instalments for the purchase of house, business premises, or furniture, taxes, rates, insurance premiums, and school fees.
In lieu of assistance in respect of the obligations mentioned above, it will be within the discretion of the Civil Liabilities Department to give assistance towards the purchase of stock-in-trade or fittings or the like in the form of a lump sum payment or by quarterly or other instalments.
No application will be entertained for assistance in discharging ordinary debts. Assistance will not be given to any in-
dividual for a longer period than twelve months from his demobilisation, or to a larger amount than £104.
Applications for assistance will be made on prescribed forms, which will be obtainable at the Post Office and Employment Exchange. The forms of application are being printed, and will be available at the Post Offices and Employment Exchanges as soon as possible.
The applications, which should ordinarily be made by the man himself, will be investigated locally by Commissioners, who will hear the cases in private. The Commissioner will not decide the case. It will be his duty to satisfy himself as to the accuracy of the statements made by the applicants, and to report, with recommendations to the Central Department, by whom the grant will be awarded.
Commissioners are already sitting to hear these applications. Between six and seven thousand applications for assistance have been made to the Civil Liabilities Department, and Commissioners are already engaged in making preliminary investigations into a large number of these applications.
I hope that decisions upon a considerable number of cases will be communicated to the applicants very shortly.

Mr. SPEAKER: I would suggest that a long answer of that kind should be circulated. We might have got through five or six questions had the hon. Gentleman taken that course.

Mr. HOGGE: May I ask if my hon. Friend or the Leader of the House, as this involves a grant of money to millions of men who are being demobilised, and as it is stated in the long answer that it is only to be a maximum of £104 as payment for one year, to be given to men while serving, does he intend to give the House an opportunity of discussing what assistance will be given to those demobilised men before that is agreed upon?

Mr. BONAR LAW (Leader of the House): That question is almost as difficult to follow as the previous answer, and I should like notice of it.

Oral Answers to Questions — INCOME TAX.

OFFICERS' GRATUITIES.

Captain LOSEBY: 8.
asked the Pensions Minister if Income Tax is still being deducted from the war gratuities of officers?

Mr. BALDWIN (Joint Financial Secretary to the Treasury): I would refer my hon. and gallant Friend to the answer given on the 13th February on this subject to the hon. and gallant Member for Ripon. In view of the promise then made, Income Tax is not now being deducted in respect of the gratuities in question. If my hon. and gallant Friend has any specific case in mind, I shall be glad to look into it if he will furnish particulars.

WOUND PENSIONS.

Colonel MILDMAY: 44.
asked the Secretary to the Treasury whether his pledge that authority would be sought in the Finance Bill to exempt wound pensions from Income Tax as from the beginning of the now current financial year will apply to all wound pensions whether granted to the wounded of this War or of previous wars?

Mr. BALDWIN: The answer is in the affirmative.

EDUCATION EXPENSES.

Sir JOHN BUTCHER: 64.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in order to encourage the better education of the younger generation and to mitigate the hardships of the incidence of the Income Tax, he will favourably consider the granting, in addition to the existing £30 abatement in respect of each child, of an abatement not exceeding £50 to cover the expenses actually incurred in his or her education?

Mr. BALDWIN: I would refer my hon. and learned Friend to the answer which I gave to a similar question by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle North on the 20th ultimo.

Sir J. BUTCHER: Is the answer a favourable one?

Mr. BALDWIN: I do not know whether my hon. Friend will consider it favourable.

ROYAL COMMISSION.

Mr. G. LOCKER-LAMPSON: 67.
asked how many women are to be appointed on the Royal Commission on Income Tax?

Mr. BALDWIN: I must ask my hon. Friend to await the announcement, which my right hon. Friend hopes to make at an early date, of the constitution of the Commission.

RELIEFS

Mr. ALFRED SHORT: 68.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he has received a resolution from the Metropolitan (Saltley, Birmingham) Works Executive Committee urging that incomes up to £200 be free from Income Tax and that the abatement in respect of a wife or child should be the amount of tax on £50; and, if so, whether he can favour reform on the lines suggested?

Mr. BALDWIN: The question of the nature and extent of the reliefs allowed to taxpayers will be one of the subjects for investigation by the forthcoming Commission.

BRITISH COMPANIES (OPERATIONS ABROAD).

Mr. ARTHUR MICHAEL SAMUEL: 74.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, with a view to encouraging the investment of local capital in British companies operating in the Colonies and foreign friendly countries, he will consider the advisability of making the stocks, shares, and debentures of such companies free of Income Tax when issued and held in the Colonies and such foreign friendly countries?

Mr. BALDWIN: This matter will fall within the scope of the inquiry into the Income Tax which a Royal Commission is about to undertake.

DEPORTED ALIENS.

Sir S. SCOTT: 12.
asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether undesirable aliens deported from the United States or our Dominions are allowed to land in this country?

The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Shortt): There has been during the War an understanding with the United States and Dominion authorities that they would not deport to the United Kingdom any undesirable aliens except persons previously resident here. In the case of the latter notice has been given so as to enable us to send them on, if practicable, to their own country.

METROPOLITAN POLICE FORCE.

Captain MARTIN: 13.
asked the Home Secretary whether he is aware that unrest and dissatisfaction exists in the Metro-
politan Police force, largely due to inequality in the hours of service; that, while police constables in some districts are on duty eight hours a day, inspectors and station sergeants are on duty for twelve hours a day; and whether he can give an assurance to take such steps as may be necessary to remove this inequality?

Mr. SHORTT: This matter is under consideration; but it must be realised that when men accept promotion, and thereby greater responsibility and higher pay and pension, they must be prepared equally to accept the longer hours of duty that such positions demand.

LIQUOR RESTRICTIONS (SATURDAY AFTERNOONS).

Captain R. TERRELL: 14.
asked the Home Secretary whether be will consider the withdrawal of the restrictions as to the sale of intoxicants on Saturday afternoons so as to enable participants in out door sports to obtain refreshments?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of MUNITIONS (Mr. James Hope): As recently as Monday last the Central Control Board have made an Order, which will take effect next week, relaxing a number of the current restrictions on the sale and supply of intoxicating liquor. The relaxation suggested by the hon. Member would go considerably beyond those recently announced, and I understand that the Central Control Board do not see their way to concede it.

Captain TERRELL: May I ask the hon. Gentleman if he can give the House his reasons for this decision?

Mr. HOPE: No. The reasons are the reasons of the Central Control Board, for whom I answer in the House, but over whom I have no control.

IMPORTS (RESTRICTIONS).

Colonel BURN: 15.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether a full statement can be made of the imports from overseas Dominions and Dependencies now subject to British Customs Duties which shall in future be free from the continuance of import restrictions?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Bridge-man): I have been asked to reply to this
question. The list of all dutiable goods, the importation of which was prohibited, but is now free in respect of those which are produced in and exported from any part of the Empire is as follows: Beer, playing cards, cinematograph films, clocks, raw cocoa and preparations of cocoa, coffee, fruit, whether canned, bottled, dried, or preserved, mechanical lighters, matches, musical instruments, brandy and rum, articles of food containing sugar, table waters, tea, tobacco, watches,. not of or containing gold, and wine.

COTTON-GROWING (BRITISH EMPIRE).

Colonel BURN: 16.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, in view of the proposed declaration relating to import of raw material required for British industries, His Majesty's Government will take into consideration the necessity of special encouragement being given to the development of cotton grown in suitable areas within the Empire; and whether the importance of developing the growth of British-grown cotton has been kept in view?

Mr. BRIDGEMAN: My right hon. Friend has asked me to answer this question. The development of cotton-growing within the Empire has engaged the earnest attention of His Majesty's Government, and of the Governments of India, Egypt, and certain of the self-governing Dominions and Colonies for a considerable time past. A Standing Committee on the subject, representative both of the Governments and of the trade interests concerned, has been appointed by the President of the Board of Trade, and is doing very valuable work.

MINING INDUSTRY (SCHOLARSHIPS).

Sir PARK GOFF: 17.
asked the President of the Board of Education what special opportunities are offered to the sons of miners to acquire that higher knowledge which will enable them to take superior posts in the mining industry; and if he can indicate what proportion of the boys now enjoying scholarships in the Royal School of Mines are the sons of actual miners?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Herbert Lewis): Within the limits of a reply in the House I can only give an answer in general terms to the hon. Member's question. In nearly all the English and Welsh counties where coal-mining is carried on facilities, including scholarships for courses in higher institutions, as well as courses of instruction held locally, are provided by local education authorities, by means of which the sons of miners can obtain the qualifications required for higher posts in mines. A considerable proportion of the successful candidates for mine managers' certificates are sons of miners. Most of the courses of instruction are held in the evening at local centres, but there are in normal times day mining courses at university and other institutions. The Royal School of Mines in the Imperial College is better suited to the needs of those who propose to take up a career in metalliferous mining. I am informed that no sons of working miners attend that school. Day courses in metalliferous mining are provided also at the Camborne School of Metalliferous Mining. Twelve scholarships providing a maintenance allowance as well as free instruction are tenable at this institution by Cornish artisans, and ten out of the twelve scholarship holders must be Cornish artisans working on mines.

PLAYING FIELDS (NATIONAL SCHOOLS).

Captain LOSEBY: 18.
asked the President of the Board of Education if he proposes to take steps in the near future to ensure that adequate playing fields are made available for pupils attending national schools in this country?

Mr. LEWIS: I am fully aware of the importance of this matter, and will see that it is not overlooked when the schemes to be submitted by local education authorities under Sections 1 to 5 of the Education. Act, 1918, are under consideration.

Oral Answers to Questions — FOOD SUPPLIES.

SUGAR.

Brigadier-General CROFT: 19.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he can now give a definite undertaking
that British Empire sugar will receive preferential advantages in the market of the United Kingdom over sugar from enemy countries?

Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the reply which the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies gave on 10th March to a question addressed to him by the Member for Newcastle North.

CORN (GUARANTEED PRICE).

Captain REGINALD TERRELL: 26.
asked the President of the Board of Trade if he can now state how he proposes to guarantee to the farmer the minimum price of corn in 1919, which shall not be less than the maximum in 1918?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD Of AGRICULTURE (Sir Arthur Boscawen): I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave to the question addressed to me by the right hon. Member for South Molton on the 10th instant, to the effect that I hoped to be able to make a definite announcement before the end of the month, or, in any case, before Easter.

Lieutenant-Colonel WEIGALL: Is my hon. and gallant Friend aware that the seeding season is on, and we cannot wait till the end of this month? Cannot he give an answer before the end of this week?

Sir A. BOSCAWEN: I am afraid it is impossible. I have promised my hon. and gallant Friend that an answer will be given as soon as possible.

SPIRITS (RESERVE STOCKS).

Mr. SPOOR: 36.
asked the President of the Local Government Board if, in view of the fact that medical demands are specifically exempted from the restrictions of the Central Control Board, measures can be taken to compel licensed victuallers to reserve from their stocks of spirits a sufficient allowance to meet all medical demands at any time?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of FOOD (Mr. McCurdy): I have been asked to reply. No Department of State has power to compel traders to reserve stocks for specific purposes. The additional quantity of spirits recently permitted to be released
from bond will, however, go far towards meeting demands for spirits for medicinal use.

FOOD SHORTAGE, WESTERN ISLES.

Dr. MURRAY: 87.
asked the Food Controller whether he is aware that there is an acute shortage of food in Harris, Uist and Barra owing to inadequate steamer service, and that for some weeks there has been no meal obtainable in certain parts of North Uist; and whether he will take immediate steps to secure a regular supply of food to these islands?

Mr. McCURDY: The question of the steamer service to these islands has been, engaging the attention of the Ministry of Food for some time. Arrangements have now been made to provide a special vessel which will supplement the steamer services to these islands and will be used for conveying foodstuffs and for meeting any emergencies which arise. I may add that on receiving a personal intimation from the hon. Member yesterday of the difficulties to which attention is directed in this question, I have telegraphed to Colonel Rose, Divisional Food Commissioner for Scotland instructing him to take all steps for meeting any emergency in the supply of foodstuffs to these islands.

CATTLE SALES.

Major COURTHOPE: 88.
asked the Food Controller what total sum has been realised by the charge of 11s. 4d. per cwt. on animals sold in markets, and what is the average charge per animal?

Mr. McCURDY: Between 19th September, 1918, the date on which the per head charge of 11s. 4d. per cwt. was levied on all cattle sold for slaughter in markets, and the end of last month, the total sum realised by this charge amounted approximately to £3,449,939. The average charge per animal was approximately £5 13s. 2d.

Mr. LAMBERT: Where does this money go?

Mr. McCURDY: Of course, this money would go towards the general administrative expenses.

Sir F. BANBURY: Has this £3,400,000 been taken out of the pockets of the farmers?

Earl WINTERTON: Under what Vote is this money taken?

Mr. SPEAKER: Hon. Members had better give notice of any further questions.

Major COURTHOPE: 89.
asked the Food Controller whether he is aware that the legality of the charge of 11s. 4d. per cwt. on animals sold in markets is questioned by some legal authorities; and whether he will submit this question to the Law Officers of the Crown for their opinion?

Mr. McCURDY: I am not aware that the legality of the per head charge on cattle sold for slaughter, which I may mention has recently been reduced, has been questioned by legal authorities. The Law Officers of the Crown will be consulted if, and when, the necessity arises.

CONFECTIONERY.

Mr. RAMSDEN: 90.
asked the Food Controller whether there is any intention of withdrawing the Order restricting the sale of sweetmeats and chocolates in public places of amusement?

Mr. McCURDY: The Order to which the hon. Member refers, namely, the Sale of Sweetmeats in Theatres (Restriction) Order, 1918, was revoked as from 1st March last.

CURRANTS.

Mr. RAMSDEN: 91.
asked the Food Controller whether he is aware of the difficulties of catering for school treats and similar functions, more especially at Whitsuntide, owing to the shortage of currants; and whether a special ration can be issued for this purpose?

Mr. McCURDY: Considerable quantities of currants have recently arrived in this country and are being distributed as rapidly as possible. I anticipate that before Whitsuntide there will be ample supplies of currants to meet all reasonable requirements; and I do not think that special rations need be issued for school-treats and similar functions, even if it were practicable to do so.

PRICES.

Sir MONTAGUE BARLOW: 93.
asked the Food Controller whether, in view of the uncertainty and dissatisfaction as to the prices of food and the nature of the Government action and expenditure in relation to the regulation of the prices of food, he will appoint a strong committee of representative business men and experts, together with Members of this House, to inquire and report forthwith?

Mr. McCURDY: The possibilities of lowering food prices are being carefully explored by an Interdepartmental Committee comprising representatives of the Treasury, the Board of Trade, the Board of Agriculture and my own Department, and prices have in several instances already been substantially reduced. The Food Controller has always enjoyed the assistance and advice of competent business men and it is not thought that the appointment of an additional Committee would serve any useful purpose.

Sir M. BARLOW: Will the Report of the Committee be available to Members of this House when it is made?

Mr. McCURDY: I must ask for notice of that question.

MILLERS' OFFALS.

Major COURTHOPE: 100.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture whether there is a large unsatisfied demand for millers' offals for the feeding of livestock; that farmers are frequently charged more than £18 per ton for bran, though they are unable to obtain the guaranteed price of £16 per ton for wheat; whether export of millers' offals is permitted; and what steps are being taken to increase the supply and reduce the price of these feeding-stuffs?

Mr. McCURDY: I have been asked to reply. The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative. As has already been announced, there is such an accumulation of millers' offals in certain districts that, although the price has been reduced, the normal production of flour has been threatened owing to congestion of the mills. Export of these offals has accordingly been permitted as an emergency measure to the extent of one quarter of one week's output. As regards the latter part of the question, farmers may not be charged more than the maximum price under the Cattle Feeding-stuffs (Maximum Prices) Order, 1918, and amendments thereof which, apart from some minor exceptions, is £13 per ton, ex-mill with bags returnable. There is no guaranteed price for the 1918 British wheat crop other than that contained in the Corn Production Act.

Captain Sir BEVILLE STANIER: Has any of this been exported out of the country?

Mr. McCURDY: The permission to export offals, if my memory serves me correctly, was only given about a fortnight ago, and I have no information yet as to what has happened.

WHEAT.

Major COURTHOPE: 101.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture whether many farmers who wish to sell their wheat are being asked to accept less than the control price; and what steps will be taken to make the guarantee of price effective?

Sir A. BOSCAWEN: While the Grain Prices Order, 1918, only fixed maximum prices for wheat the Royal Commission on Wheat Supplies have issued instructions that sound wheat of the 1918 crop should be purchased by millers at the stated maximum price. Owing to temporary congestion of storage it has not always been possible for millers to take wheat offered to them, but if the hon. and gallant Member will forward to the Board particulars of any instances in which farmers are unable to dispose of their wheat, endeavours will be made to find a market.

RAILWAY FACILITIES (EASTER HOLIDAYS).

Mr. RAMSDEN: 20.
asked the President of the Board of Trade if he can make any statement as to the railway facilities which will be offered for Easter holiday travelling in the West Riding district of Yorkshire?

Mr. BRIDGEMAN: The Board of Trade have no detailed information on this matter, and I would suggest that the hon. Gentleman should ask the railway companies concerned for any particulars he may desire to obtain.

NEWSPAPER RETURNS.

Sir CLEMENT KINLOCH-COOKE: 21.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is now in a position to make any statement with regard to the withdrawal of the No Returns Order, which is handicapping the sale and distribution of serious literature in many directions?

Mr. BRIDGEMAN: My right hon. Friend is not now in a position to make a
statement with regard to the withdrawal of the No Returns Order, but expects to be in a position to do so at an early date.

Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that these restrictions, are a hindrance to propaganda which, would be very useful to the Government?

Mr. BRIDGEMAN: My right hon. Friend, I think, is aware of all the difficulties surrounding the question.

Sir M. BARLOW: 27.
asked the President of the Board of Trade why, if the newspaper owners have now received 75 per cent, more paper than they were allowed when the No Returns Order was, issued, there is any reason for the continuation of that restriction so far as newsagents are concerned?

Mr. BRIDGEMAN: My right hon. Friend is considering the reasons for and against the continuation of the No Returns Order, and expects to make an announcement at an early date.

Mr. ROWLANDS: Will my hon. Friend expedite the decision on account of the great inconvenience which it causes to the retail newsagents?

Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I should be very glad to do it if I could. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"]

NORTH STAFFORDSHIRE RAILWAY COMPANY.

Mr. SEDDON: 22.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he has received a reply from the Stoke-on-Trent Borough Council to the statement made by the North Staffordshire Railway Company upon the report of Mr. Rowland Whitehead, K.C., with reference to the workings of the above railway company; and whether he is aware of the effect of the delay in giving effect to the findings of the inquiry upon the industrial development of North Staffordshire, and of the uneasiness among the manufacturers, traders, and the public generally caused thereby?

Mr. BRIDGEMAN: My right hon. Friend has not received a reply from the Corporation of Stoke-on-Trent to the statement referred to, but as soon as a reply is received it will be considered.

TRAIN SERVICES (SUSPENSIONS).

Mr. RAMSDEN: 25.
asked the President of the Board of Trade on how many railways during the War was the service of trains entirely suspended; and whether these services have been resumed in any form?

Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I am afraid I cannot inform the hon. Gentleman on how many railways train services were entirely suspended during the War. As regards the latter part of the question, I am asking the Railway Executive Committee if they can furnish information.

TIMBER (GOVERNMENT STOCKS).

Mr. RAPER: 28
asked the President of the Board of Trade (1) if he is aware that no other civilised country will allow wrack wood to be utilised in the construction of houses for human habitation; If he will take steps to prevent its further use for this purpose in this country; (2) what is the total f.o.b. value of all timber bought by the Timber Controller and/or the Government buyer since the Armistice; what are the total Government stocks, hard woods expressed in loads and soft woods in standards; (3) how many standards of wrack wood have boon purchased by the Timber Controller and/or Government buyer since the Armistice; how many standards were still to come forward at that time against old contracts; what is the total quantity of wrack in stock in the United Kingdom; and for what purpose this wood is imported?

Mr. BRIDGEMAN: Since the Armistice timber purchases have been made to the value of about £7,000,000 in order to ensure supplies for reconstruction. In making these purchases the Controller of Timber Supplies has had the benefit of the assistance, not only of the Government timber buyer, but also of an advisory purchasing committee, composed of highly expert timber merchants. The amount of wrack imported is relatively insignificant. This quality of wood is used for making packing cases. About 100 standards of wrack were still to come forward at the Armistice, about 180 standards have been purchased since, and about 120 standards are in stock.
The total timber stocks held by the Board of Trade, both in this country and
yet to arrive, are about 550,000 standards of soft wood and 10,000 loads of hard woods, excluding mahogany. Particulars of the Government stocks will be duly announced in the trade papers, in a few weeks in connection with the winding up of the Timber Control after the end of the month. If my hon. Friend desires further information, I would suggest that he should communicate with the Timber Controller, who would be happy to give him any particulars possible. Questions as to housing regulations should be addressed to my right hon. Friend the President of the Local Government Board.

Mr. RAPER: Will my hon. Friend promise that none of that wrack wood will be used for any purpose except packing cases?

Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I have read a very interesting article which the hon. Gentleman wrote in the "Sunday Times," and I entirely sympathise with the object of it. I should be very glad if he would see the Timber Controller himself.

PUBLIC LIBRARIES.

Major BARKER: 31.
asked the President of the Local Government Board whether, having regard to the increasing habit of reading among the general population, he will consider an amendment of the law enabling local authorities to spend more than the amount of the present limited library rate?

Mr. PRATT (Lord of the Treasury): The suggestion of the hon. and gallant Member will be borne in mind when legislation on the subject of public libraries is being undertaken.

OLD AGE PENSIONS.

Major E. WOOD: 32.
asked the President of the Local Government Board whether he is aware that the Army pension, of which a parent, grandparent, or other person may be in receipt in respect of a eon, grandson, or other relative who has met his death as a result of the War, is taken into account when calculating the moans of an applicant for an old age pension; and whether he will, in conjunction with the Treasury, take early steps to revise this practice?

Mr. BALDWIN: I would refer my hon. and gallant Friend to the reply which I gave on Monday to the hon. Member for Mansfield.

Mr. CHARLES WHITE: 37.
asked the President of the Local Government Board what is the average duration in years of an old age pension, and what is the average cost per pensioner for the period during receipt of an old age pension?

Mr. BALDWIN: I regret that no statistics are available to enable me to supply the information asked for by the hon. Member.

Mr. WHITE: Could they not be obtained?

Mr. BALDWIN: I am afraid not. There is no means of getting the figures.

REGISTRATION (RUGELEY DIVISION).

Mr. SITCH: 33.
asked the President of the Local Government Board whether he is aware that, at the recent election in the Rugeley Division for the Staffordshire County Council, a number of people who were on the Parliamentary register for the General Election and have occupied the same houses for many years discovered they were not on the register for the county council election; whether he is aware that Hazeslade, a mining village three and a-half miles from Brereton, had no polling station and, consequently, many voters were unable to poll; and whether he can make inquiries into this matter?

Mr. PRATT: I have no information with regard to the matter referred to in the question, but I am in communication with the clerk of the county council on the subject, and will let the hon. Member know the result.

VACCINATION LYMPH.

Mr. F. GREEN: 34.
asked the President of the Local Government Board whether the Government are prepared to guarantee that the lymph issued by them for public vaccination purposes will not produce unintended complications; and, in the event of such complications arising, will they consider the advisability of giving compensation to the sufferers?

Mr. PRATT: The lymph issued from the Government lymph establishment to public vaccinators is prepared by methods which prevent it from being contaminated by septic organisms. In the relatively rare cases where vaccination is complicated by the occurrence of septic conditions, the complications usually result from accidental infection of the vaccinated surface, and are not attributable to the lymph. I cannot accept the principle that compensation should be paid by the Government in cases where complications arise after vaccination.

SALVARSAN SUBSTITUTES.

Mr. F. GREEN: 35.
asked the President of the Local Government Board what guarantee the Government have that the remedies approved by them as substitutes for salvarsan are exactly similar, or even approximately similar, to the remedy as discovered and patented by Ehrlich?

Mr. PRATT: All the approved substitutes, except gelyl, are manufactured under licences issued by the Board of Trade for the express purpose of allowing the manufacturers to employ the processes which are used in the manufacture of the original salvarsan and which are protected by patents. The presumption is, therefore, that the drugs produced by these manufacturers are similar to the original article. For the protection of the public all the approved substitutes are tested on behalf of the Medical Research Committee before being placed on sale. I understand that the Salvarsan Committee appointed by the Medical Research Committee have already considered the question, and that they will shortly issue a report in regard to it.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSING.

SOLDIERS' HUTMENTS.

Mr. HURD: 38.
asked the President of the Local Government Board whether he has under consideration modifications in the building by-laws to allow of the use of soldiers' hutments for the housing of farm labourers generally, and particularly of soldier settlers on the land?

Mr. PRATT: The question of the application of by-laws and of any Statutory provisions affecting the erection of dwelling-houses of a temporary character is under consideration.

Mr. HURD: Would the hon. Gentleman consider the advisability of appointing a small Sub-committee to consider this matter with the advice, of the local authorities?

Mr. PRATT: I will put that to my right hon. Friend.

CIVIL SERVICE (SALARIES).

Lieutenant-Colonel WEIGALL: 39.
asked the Secretary to the Treasury whether temporary Civil servants in receipt of wound pensions have their salaries as Civil servants reduced by the amount of 10 per cent.; and whether in certain cases this reduction absorbs the whole amount of such pensions?

Mr. BALDWIN: As regards wounds pensions in the strict sense of the term, the answer is in the negative, pensions for wounds being specifically excluded from the operation of the Statutory Rules made under Section 6 of the Superannuation Act, 1887. If, however, my hon. and gallant Friend has in mind the case of officers in receipt of retired pay for disability, such officers if taken into civil employment in a Government Department are at present liable to a deduction in respect of their retired pay, which may in some cases absorb the whole amount of such retired pay. The Treasury are advised that this deduction cannot be waived without special statutory power being taken to amend the existing Rules. A Bill for this purpose is in course of preparation and will be introduced at the earliest possible date.

Lieutenant-Colonel WEIGALL: Thank you.

Mr. RAMSDEN: 40.
asked the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is able to state the decisions arrived at with regard to the increase of the permanent salaries of the Civil Service; and whether he is arranging to ascertain the views on the matter of the staffs themselves?

Sir MONTAGUE BARLOW: 65.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the question of the revision of bonus and rates of pay for various branches of the Civil Service is under consideration; and, if so, whether, before any decision is come to, opportunity will be given for consideration, on the lines of the Whitley Report,
of the questions involved, and for a conference between representatives of the Treasury and of the Civil Service?

Mr. RAPER: 69.
asked whether, before any adjustment is made with regard to salaries and conditions of employment in the Civil Service, an opportunity will be given to Civil servants to place their views before the Treasury?

Mr. BALDWIN: I would refer my hon. Friends to the reply given on Tuesday last to the right hon. Member for the Platting Division of Manchester

CUSTOMS AND EXCISE DEPARTMENT.

Sir J. BUTCHER: 43.
asked the Secretary to the Treasury the number of men in the Statistical Office and other branches, respectively, of the Customs and Excise Department who volunteered and were accepted for service in 1914 and 1915, the number of these men who have been put forward by the Customs and Excise Department for transfer to the Ministry of Pensions as second-class clerks and have been given clerkships, and the number of civilians who have been so put forward and have been given clerkships; and whether preference for such appointments will in future be in all cases given to the men who voluntarily joined for service provided they are properly qualified?

Mr. BALDWIN: Applications for transfer to the Ministry of Pensions as second class clerks were invited from the staff of the Customs and Excise Department, and every effort was made to bring the matter to the notice of members of the staff on military service. The nominations numbered fifty in all, of whom twelve had served in the War, and the Ministry of Pensions selected twenty-one for transfer on probation, of whom four had so served. I am informed that the Ministry needed the services of experienced officers, and that owing to their age most of the applicants with military service failed to satisfy this requirement. The transfers in question were arranged prior to the issue of the Treasury Circular of 29th January last, and I can assure my hon. Friend that the suggestion contained in the concluding sentence of the question will be carefully borne in mind.

PARIS ECONOMIC RESOLUTIONS.

Brigadier-General CROFT: 45.
asked the Prime Minister whether all Papers relating to the Paris economic resolutions may be laid upon the Table of the House?

Mr. BONAR LAW: I regret that no further information is available for publication except that which is contained in the White Paper.

EX-SERVICE MEN (LIGHT WORK).

Major BARKER: 46.
asked the Prime Minister whether, having regard to the number of discharged men recommended for employment in light work only, and the lack of such employment in the ordinary labour market, he will consider the question of State employment in special factories for such men under medical supervision until fit for normal work?

Mr. WARDLE: As I have already informed the House an appeal to employers to engage disabled men is about to be made by the Prime Minister, and I am hopeful that this will result in suitable employment being found for a large proportion of the disabled men who have not yet been placed in employment. It is, I think, undesirable at the moment to consider as to any alternative, and obviously less satisfactory means of securing employment for disabled men until the Government have had an opportunity of measuring definitely and analysing the nature of that part of the problem which will remain unsolved, say, a month or two after the Prime Minister's appeal. I can, however, assure the hon. and gallant Member that the whole question will receive further and most careful consideration as soon as it is apparent that disabled men have obtained the maximum amount of benefit which may be expected as the result of the Prime Minister's appeal.

MINISTRY OF WAYS AND COMMUNICATIONS BILL.

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: 51.
asked the Prime Minister whether the Government has received any and, if so, what resolutions from local authorities in regard to the inclusion of roads in the Ways and Communications Bill?

Mr. BONAR LAW: I am informed that a number of resolutions have been received, but they vary in character.

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: Will my right hon. Friend either tabulate the resolutions, or give us some indication of the authorities?

Mr. BONAR LAW: The majority are in favour of the views of my hon. Friend, but against that must be set the very much larger number who have not replied to his circular.

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: They are doing so rapidly.

CHANNEL TUNNEL.

Lieutenant-Colonel RAYMOND GREENE: 54.
asked the Prime Minister whether, before any steps are taken to carry out the proposed Channel Tunnel between England and France, the scheme will of necessity come before the House of Commons in the form of a Bill?

Major HILLS: 62.
asked the Prime Minister whether, before coming to a decision on the Channel Tunnel question, he will take into consideration the comparative cost, the speed in which it can be started working, and the value to our industry and commerce of a train ferry, or several train ferries, across the Channel as against a single Channel tunnel; and will he give an assurance that the House will have an opportunity of pronouncing on the question before the country is committed?

Mr. BONAR LAW: Before any action is taken in the matter the consideration referred to in the question of my hon. Friend the Member for Durham, would certainly be taken into account and the sanction of Parliament would be required.

FISCAL POLICY.

Mr. HIGHAM: 55.
asked the Prime Minister if he can assure the House that the Government's policy in regard to dumping will be announced before the presentation of the new Budget; and, if not, will he explain the reasons for this course of action?

Mr. G. TERRELL: 58.
asked the Prime Minister when he will be in a position to make the long-promised statement as to the policy of the Government for the protection of key industries and the prevention of dumping?

Mr. BONAR LAW: I have nothing to add to what I said in reply to supplementary questions on the 5th March arising out of a question by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington South.

Mr. TERRELL: Is my right hon. Friend not aware that this matter is one of great and increasing urgency; will he not, therefore, under the circumstances, see his way to make some definite statement at an early date?

Mr. BONAR LAW: In the supplementary questions and answers to which I have referred, I pointed out that it is impossible to do everything in one day, and that time must be given for these matters.

Mr. TERRELL: May I ask my right hon. Friend if he is aware that this question was addressed to him all through last year, and on several occasions this Session, with unsatisfactory results?

Mr. BONAR LAW: I am aware of that, and that I have answered many questions on the subject. But I would suggest to my hon. Friend that no decision is hastened by asking the same question once or twice every week,

Mr. HURD: Is it true, as stated, that the Government has a Bill in being?

Mr. BONAR LAW: I have already said, in answer to previous questions, that the Government are taking steps as rapidly as possible to carry out the undertaking given to the electors.

Mr. A. M. SAMUEL: 75.
asked with a view to reducing certain imports from the United States and to stimulating British exports to the United States, he will consider the advisability of allowing the American exchange to find gradually its own level by removal of artificial support?

Mr. BALDWIN: My right hon. Friend may rest assured that in considering their policy in regard to the American and other foreign exchanges, His Majesty's Government will not lose sight of the very important considerations referred to in his question.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Do the Board of Trade approve of maintaining the American exchange in view of its effect in restricting our exports and imports?

Mr. BALDWIN: I am afraid that I cannot express the view of the Board of Trade. I have no right to do that.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Have the Board of Trade been consulted about this matter?

Mr. BALDWIN: I should require notice of that question.

GERMAN MERCANTILE FLEET.

Mr. R. McNEILL: 56.
asked the Prime Minister whether the German Armistice Commission or the German Government has refused to hand over the German mercantile fleet to the Allies; if he will say in what ports the ships are lying; and whether it is proposed, in view of the fact that we are still at war with Germany, to employ the British Navy to take forcible possession of the German ships?

Mr. BONAR LAW: This subject is now being dealt with in Paris, and I cannot at present make any statement about it.

Mr. McNEILL: 57.
asked the Prime Minister whether the demand of the Allies for the use of the German mercantile fleet for the specific purpose of revictualling Germany and other countries means that the ton-for-ton policy is not to form part of the permanent terms of peace; and, if so, will he say why British public opinion in this respect is to be disregarded?

Mr. BONAR LAW: No, Sir; the demand of the Allies does not bear the construction suggested in the first part of my hon. Friend's question.

INDEMNITIES.

Lieutenant-Colonel ARCHER-SHEE: 60.
asked the Prime Minister whether our representatives on the Reparation Commission have been instructed to press for the full amount of indemnities due to this country, so that in the event of a proportionate distribution of the amount obtainable we shall obtain our full and proper quota?

Mr. BONAR LAW: I cannot add anything to the very definite statements which have been already made on this subject.

Lieutenant-Colonel GUINNESS: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this is the third time that he has felt himself unable to answer on this point: are we to assume, that the answer is in the negative?

Mr. BONAR LAW: That would not be aright assumption. On the last occasion I reminded my hon. Friend that if he put the same question every week he could only get the same answer. The position of the Government on the matter has been made quite clear.

Lieutenant-Colonel ARCHER-SHEE: May I ask whether, in view of the widespread rumours that we are not insisting upon our full indemnity, the right hon. Gentleman will at any rate give us a little more information than he has done up till now?

Mr. BONAR LAW: It is impossible to give more information. The policy of the Government has been made quite clear. It is that we shall take everything which, in the opinion of our Commission, Germany is able to pay. We cannot go beyond that.

Mr. MACMASTER: and Brigadier-General CROFT rose—

Mr. SPEAKER: Any further questions must be put down.

LAND SETTLEMENT.

Major E. WOOD: 63.
asked the Lord Privy Seal when it is hoped to introduce the Bill dealing with land settlement?

Mr. BONAR LAW: I hope that it will be possible to introduce this Bill early next week.

Sir SAMUEL SCOTT: 98.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture what amount of land has been taken over by the Government and local authorities for the purpose of land settlement of soldiers and sailors?

Sir A. BOSCAWEN: Approximately 16,400 acres have already been acquired for the settlement of ex-Service men, and additional land is being acquired for the purpose each week.

Mr. RAFFAN: How many men have been actually settled on the land?

Sir A. BOSCAWEN: I must ask for notice of that question.

Sir S. SCOTT: 99.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture whether the Government has considered the possibility of forming county land
settlement colonies for officers or men who have served in the regiments belonging to the county?

Sir A. BOSCAWEN: The Board have urged county councils to establish land settlement colonies for the ex-Service men for whom they are responsible, and the Board have reason to believe that in the selection of tenants for any colonies that are established preference will be given to men who have served in the County Regiment.

Sir S. SCOTT: How many colonies have been established?

Sir A. BOSCAWEN: Four have been already established by the Board.

Major E. WOOD: Can the hon. Gentleman give the House any estimate how many men require land?

Sir A. BOSCAWEN: I cannot give any actual estimate. We are obtaining figures at the present moment.

Mr. HINDS: 103.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture what progress has been made with the development and organisation of the Crown colony at Towyn and Penybedd, in the county of Carmarthen; whether a director has been appointed; and whether the said director will be required to submit his proposals for approval by the Advisory Committee?

Sir A. BOSCAWEN: Adverse weather conditions have seriously handicapped the work on this settlement. Before any beginning can be made in the settlement the land must be drained and thoroughly cleaned; this work is in progress. No director has yet been appointed. When appointed he will be required to submit his proposals as to policy to the Board, who will consult the Advisory Committee as occasion arises.

Mr. RAFFAN: Is this one of the four colonies which are stated to be in good working order?

Sir A. BOSCAWEN: Yes, it is one of the four colonies.

RETIRED CIVIL SERVANTS AND POLICE (PENSIONS).

Lieutenant-Colonel GUINNESS: 59.
asked the Prime Minister whether he intends to take any steps to secure the re-
consideration of pensions paid under pre-war conditions to Civil servants and to the police, in view of the increased cost of living and to the higher rates of pensions which are in many cases being paid to those who are retiring under the new conditions?

Mr. BALDWIN: I have nothing to add to my previous answers given on this subject to the hon. Member for Belfast on the 5th instant and to other hon. Members previously.

INDUSTRIAL COUNCILS.

Mr. LEONARD LYLE: 50.
asked the Prime Minister whether has has now received the Report of the Interdepartmental Committee on the proposed application of the Whitley Councils scheme to the clerical side of the Civil Service; whether, in that event, he can inform the House of its main recommendations; and whether, before there is any modification in respect of either permanent wages or hours of employment, he will first, through these councils, ascertain the views of the employé's?

Mr. BALDWIN: The answers to the first and second parts of the question are in the negative. As regards the last part, I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply given on Tuesday last to the right hon. Member for the Platting Division of Manchester.

FLANDERS BATTLEFIELDS.

Mr. RAMSDEN: 48.
asked the Prime Minister what steps are being taken to preserve the historic character of the chief battlefields in Flanders with which the bravery and the sufferings of the British troops are more especially connected?

Captain GUEST (Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury): My right hon. Friend will make a statement on this subject in the course of next week.

WAR BONDS.

Mr. HIGHAM: 71.
asked if in view of the present low sales of War Bonds, he proposes to withdraw that issue; and will he consider the desirability, in view of the national debt, of issuing a form of bond that will appeal to the public and, by so
doing, maintain the steady investment in Government securities that was so apparent during 1917–1918?

Mr. BALDWIN: The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative. With regard to the second, I should like to take this opportunity of emphasising, the great importance of maintaining subscriptions to War Bonds and War Savings Certificates. The need for steady and increased subscriptions is now and will for some time continue to be as essential as at any time during the War.

EXCESS PROFITS DUTY.

Colonel PICKERING: 72.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he is aware that the lack of a definite statement concerning Excess Profits Duty is impeding business and that the continuance of this war tax is causing the general public to have to pay unnecessarily high prices for all kinds of wearing apparel and other necessaries; and whether he is prepared to make any statement on the subject?

Mr. BALDWIN: I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer that I gave on the 20th February in reply to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Forfar.

ROYAL DUTCH COMPANY (REQUISITIONED SHARES).

Sir FREDERICK BANBURY: 73.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will now state or will give a Return stating what has been the result of the seizure in November, 1917, by the Treasury, without the consent of the owners, of shares in the Royal Dutch Company for working petroleum mines, seized in order to use them for the purpose of acting on, the rate of exchange, at a payment of £51 per share, which was less in many cases than their cost price, being made to the owners by the Treasury as compensation for the seizure; what the total amount was that was thus paid for the shares; how they were used to influence the rate of exchange; whether their use did in fact so influence it; and whether the Treasury have taken advantage of the great rise in price of these shares since their seizure thereof to sell any of these shares at a profit; and, if so, how many?

Mr. BALDWIN: Shares in the Royal Dutch Company were requisitioned by Treasury Order No. 5, of 1917, issued under Defence of the Realm Regulation 7c, the holders receiving compensation at the current market value at the time of requisition, at a cost of over £2,700,000. Advantage has been taken of favourable opportunities to sell shares for the purpose of supporting foreign exchange. I do not think it is in the public interest to give details of the operations.

Sir F. BANBURY: May I ask whether the action on the exchange could not have been effected by borrowing the shares as has been done in other cases; and if that is so will the hon. Gentleman consider the advisability of recompensing the owners of those shares compulsorily taken from them by giving them the price at which the Treasury has sold them?

Mr. BALDWIN: I am afraid that I could not answer that question within the limits of a question and answer, but the matter to which my hon. Friend refers was carefully considered at the time by my right hon. Friend who was then Chancellor of the Exchequer, and I am sure that the course he took then was the correct one.

Sir F. BANBURY: Will the hon. Gentleman consider the matter and see me privately about it afterwards?

Mr. BALDWIN: I will bring the matter to the notice of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and I cannot do more.

EMPLOYMENT EXCHANGES.

Mr. WILLIAM GRAHAM: 76.
asked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware of the difficulty in dealing with discharged and demobilised men at the Employment Exchange, Tollcross, Edinburgh, and also with dealing with civilians now unemployed, owing to lack of accommodation, and that the present system makes it necessary for the men to wait for long periods under trying weather conditions; and whether steps will be taken immediately to provide additional accommodation in the city and, if necessary, additional staff in order to enable this work to be overtaken more expeditiously?

Mr. WARDLE: I understand that until recently the existing staff and accommodation were sufficient to cope with the
work. Owing to an increase in the numbers to be dealt with, additional premises have now been secured and will shortly be opened.

Mr. HAYDN JONES: 77.
asked the Minister of Labour whether he will give the name, age, qualifications, and experience of the person appointed to take charge of the Labour Exchange at Blaenau Festiniog; whether the said person has served in any of His Majesty's Forces; and whether the post was advertised before the appointment was made?

Mr. WARDLE: The Employment Exchange at Blaenau Festiniog is in charge of Mr. H. M. Williams, an established officer of the Employment Department of the Ministry of Labour. His age is thirty-two, and he has served in the Department since January, 1910. He was not released by the Department for service in His Majesty's Forces, but attested under the Derby scheme and was placed in Category C1. The selection of officers to take charge of Employment Exchanges is made from the permanent staff of the Department, and vacancies are not advertised.

MINISTRY OF LABOUR (APPOINTMENTS).

Lieutenant-Colonel Lord HENRY CAVENDISH-BENTINCK: 78.
asked the Minister of Labour, with reference to the higher appointments for women in his Department, for which applications have been invited from the staffs of the National Health Insurance Commission and the Public Trustee, whether the staff in the Post Office, the first Department in the Civil Service to employ women, has been given an equal opportunity of applying for these posts?

Mr. WARDLE: The General Post Office was included among the Government Departments which were recently invited to submit nominations of women serving on their staff for consideration for certain higher appointments in the Ministry of Labour. The replies to this invitation have been forwarded to the Treasury to be dealt with under the general procedure recently adopted in regard to the transfers of officers between Government Departments.

GERMAN PRISONERS (DURHAM).

Mr. SWAN: 79.
asked the Minister of Labour if he will consider the advisability
of taking the German prisoners who are now working in the quarries in the Stanhope district, county of Durham, out of the same, and thus find work for some of the unemployed receiving out-of-work pay?

Mr. WARDLE: I am at the moment in communication with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War on the whole question of the continued employment of prisoner labour, and, if the case referred to by the hon. Member is not covered by the general decision which it is hoped will be reached within the next few days, I shall cause inquiry to be made into the position and shall communicate the result to him.

CIVIL LIABILITIES COMMISSION (DELAY).

Mr. R. GWYNNE: 80.
asked the Minister of Labour whether his attention has been called to the feeling of dissatisfaction among demobilised men at the delay which occurs before they can receive assistance from the Civil Liabilities Commissioners for re-establishing their businesses; whether he is aware that an applicant has to fill in a form containing 100 questions and that he is directed to send it to the Commissioner, but no indication is given as to who he is and where he is to be found; and if it can be arranged for a less complicated form to be issued?

Mr. WARDLE: My attention has been called to this matter, and I shall hope that the issue of the new Regulations, which are now in the hands of the printers, will remove the occasion for delay. With regard to the form of application, I am assured that every endeavour has been made to simplify the form, but the experience of the last three years has shown that the circumstances of the cases to be dealt with under the scheme are very varied, and it is essential to make provision in the forms for securing the necessary information in any case in which application may be made. Applicants are informed, when they receive the form, that the address of the local Commission can be obtained at the post office.

Mr. GWYNNE: Could the right hon. Gentleman not simplify this matter so as to avoid hundreds of questions?

Mr. WARDLE: I am going to have that matter specially looked into.

TENTERS' STRIKE, ABERDEEN.

Mr. ROSE: 81.
asked the Minister of Labour if his attention has been directed to a strike of tenters at the Broadford works of Messrs. Richards, Limited, Aberdeen; if he is aware that the dispute has arisen from the refusal of the firm to honour a wages award and That such refusal has been aggravated by a non-recognition of the workers' union; and if, in view of the firm being Government contractors, he has any authority to compel compliance with terms accepted by other employers in the same industry?

Mr. WARDLE: Yes, Sir; I have just received a detailed report on this matter from an officer of my Department, and this report is being carefully considered, but I am not yet in a position to make a statement.

NAVY ESTIMATES (ANALYSIS).

Brigadier-General SURTEES: 82.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether, in view of the amount of the Navy Estimates, he will present to Parliament an analysis of the table in the White Paper, Navy Estimates for the year 1919–20, showing precisely what are Peace Estimates and what are War Estimates, that is to say, what amounts apply exclusively to peace conditions and what amounts represent commitments arising out of the War?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Dr. Macnamara): My hon. and gallant Friend will have taken note of the fact that we did our best yesterday in the Debate on the Vote on Account to give the Committee some analysis of the extent to which Navy Estimates in 1919–20 will have to bear war charges. We shall, of course, be in a better position to pursue the analysis more closely when the detailed Estimates for 1919–20 are submitted later.

TELEPHONE SERVICE.

Mr. JAMES BROWN: 84.
asked the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that the village of Dalrymple, Ayrshire, is wholly without telephonic or telegraphic communication, that there is no medical doctor in the parish, and that
when medical assistance is needed it must be brought from the neighbouring parishes of Ayr, Maybole, or Colyton; if he is aware that at the outbreak of war negotiations were on foot to have a small exchange at Dalrymple Post Office and that five or six persons offered themselves as subscribers; and whether he will now undertake to arrange for an exchange for telephonic or telegraphic communication, or both, for the village?

The ASSISTANT-POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Pease): In September, 1913, the question of providing a public telephone service at Dalrymple was considered, but the proposal had to be dropped, as it was not justified financially. I am arranging for further inquiry to be made as to the case for the introduction of a telegraph or telephone service.

Mr. TERRELL: 86.
asked when the repairs to the breakdown of the telephone service which occurred on the 3rd January last in the Chippenham Division of Wiltshire will be made good; and whether he is aware that great local inconvenience is caused by the delay in making good?

Mr. PEASE: The major portion of the repairs will be completed by the end of the present month, and the whole will, it is hoped, be finished by the middle of April. The difficulty of completing the repairs has been due to the widespread storm damage, and the fact that very large numbers of the engineering workmen were, and in most cases still are, serving in the Army.

MAIL SERVICE (ABERDEEN).

Mr. F. C. THOMSON: 85
asked whether immediate steps can be taken to accelerate the arrival at Aberdeen of the morning postal train from the South, as the manufacturers and traders of the city are much inconvenienced by the lateness of the delivery of the first morning mail, letters from the South not being usually delivered until between eleven and twelve, and at times later, and also to accelerate the delivery of telegrams?

Mr. PEASE: I am aware that the postal and telegraph service between London and Aberdeen is not so good as it was before the War. I regret that it is not possible to improve this service at the present time.

SHIPPING (GREAT BRITAIN AND UNITED STATES).

Mr. GOULD: 94.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Shipping Controller whether, seeing that the United States Shipping Board have established lines of steamers on routes and on trades formerly controlled by British steamship companies, he can state the number of British vessels, their dead-weight and gross tonnage, now allocated to the use of the United States Government for military and transport services; and whether his Department have considered the advisability of all British ships being withdrawn from the use of the United States Government as quickly as possible, or when the United States Government have ton-for-ton available for substitution?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of SHIPPING (Colonel Leslie Wilson): With regard to the first part of the question, I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply which I gave yesterday to the Noble Viscount the Member for Aldershot. At the moment the only ship allocated to the Americans, for repatriation of troops is the steamship "Haverford" (11,635 gross tons, 11,090 dead-weight), which is unsuitable for other routes. A third part of the space of the steamship "Mauretania" on her forthcoming voyage has also been allotted. His Majesty's Government cannot withhold assistants from her co-belligerents which can properly be rendered after Dominion and Imperial needs have been fully met.

BRITISH VESSELS (SALES TO FOREIGNERS).

Mr. GOULD: 95.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Shipping Controller whether, seeing that his Department have authorised the sale of British vessels over fifteen years to foreigners at prices nearly approximating the cost of similar-sized new vessels, he will explain why he now demands approximately 75 per cent, of the difference between the British and foreign market values; and whether he is aware that owners will not take advantage of his suggestion, and that his action is preventing the placing of new orders by shipowners, and consequently restricting the opportunities of long, continuous employment in the engineering and shipbuilding trades?

Colonel WILSON: As regards the former part of this question, I would refer the hon. Member to the reply to his question of 10th instant on the same subject. The answer to the latter part of the question is in the negative.

BINDER-TWINE.

Lieutenant-Colonel W. GUINNESS: 102.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture whether the price of binder-twine has greatly risen since the fixed price of 115s. was removed; and whether, in view of the difficulty thus caused to agriculturists, he will take steps to have the price again controlled?

Sir A. BOSCAWEN: This question has been carefully considered, and it is felt that it would not be in the agricultural interest to control the price of binder-twine owing to the drop which has taken place in the price of hemp during the past four months. Competition is likely to result in a better price to farmers than would be obtained if the price were regulated on the basis of the average cost of production. The price ruling in the Spring and Summer of 1918 was 120s., not 115s.

DEMOBILISATION.

POST OFFICE SIGNALLERS.

Mr. W. GRAHAM: 111.
asked the Secretary of State for War whether a notice has been posted at the wireless general headquarters which states that no Post Office men, whether pivotal or not, would be released unless specially asked for on the Postmaster-General's list; whether the Postmaster-General's list was mainly composed of the younger men, with the result that hundreds of signallers between the age of thirty-seven and forty-six years of age see no prospect of demobilisation; whether, having regard to the equal skill of all the men who have been serving in the Royal Engineers, signals, during the War, he will disregard the Postmaster-General's list and release the men according to age; whether he is aware that scores of operators are doing practically no work and certainly nothing either important or necessary in connection with communications; and whether, having regard to the state of unrest, he will cause an urgent inquiry to be made
as to the character of the fatigues and other activities upon which hundreds of skilled men are at present employed?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I am not aware of such a notice having been posted anywhere. The second part of the question should be addressed to my right hon. Friend the Postmaster-General. Men registered as civil demobilisers before the 1st February, 1919, are being demobilised irrespective of age or length of service. I cannot entertain my hon. Friend's proposal to disregard the list of men applied for as demobilisers by my right hon. Friend the Postmaster-General. Men who are not so registered will be demobilised if eligible under current instructions, subject, of course, to the exigencies of the Service.

ARMY TRANSFERS (AGRICULTURE).

Mr. W. GRAHAM: 112.
asked the Secretary of State for War if he will give details as to the present position of men transferred from the forces to agricultural work; whether he is aware that in many cases the remuneration offered is inadequate for the maintenance of the men, their wives, and families; whether steps can be taken to secure the demobilisation of these men or improvement in the conditions under which they are employed; and whether, if their services are retained, separation allowances will be issued to enable their homes to be maintained in reasonable comfort having regard to the present cost of living?

Mr. CHURCHILL: Those men who are eligible for demobilisation under Army Order 55 are being demobilised as rapidly as possible and a great number have already been released. Those still serving are receiving in all cases the full agricultural wage as fixed by the Wages Board, with a slight addition from Army funds. Any representations on the subject of the adequacy of such wages should be addressed to my Noble Friend the President of the Board of Agriculture. I regret that I cannot agree to the issue of separation allowance to those living in their own houses.

LIQUOR TRAFFIC (SHORNCLIFFE AREA).

Mr. R. McNEILL: 96.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of
Munitions whether the Central Control Board (Liquor Traffic) has yet completed its consideration of the question of extending the closing hour in the Shorncliffe area; and, if so, what decision has been arrived at?

Mr. HOPE: Under the Order of the Central Control Board, which comes into force on Monday next, the evening hours of sale will be extended and the closing hour will be 9.30 p.m. instead of 8 p.m., as at present.

HOSTILE AIRCRAFT (SUSPENDING ENTANGLEMENTS).

Major LANE-FOX: 97.
asked the Under-Secretary of State to the Air Ministry if he can state with whom the idea of suspending entanglements for hostile air craft originated; what reward, if any, has been paid to him; and whether he is aware that a suggestion of this invention was received by the Air Board in 1914, and was rejected as being useless?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for AIR (Major-General Seely): The method of suspending entanglements from balloons which was adopted in 1917 was taken from designs used in the defence of Venice, and the credit for the inception is due to the Italian Government. A proposal for the use of entanglements hung from balloons was first patented in 1913, and several hundreds of proposals of a similar nature were received during the War. It is not considered that any reward was due to the originators as the value of the proposals depended entirely on the methods devised for carrying them into practical effect. The Air Board did not come into existence until May, 1916, and it is not possible to identify the particular proposal referred to in the last part of the question.

Major LANE-FOX: Is he aware of the statement made in the Press and elsewhere that it was a distinguished officer in the Air Service, and can that now be definitely contradicted, in view of the dissatisfaction caused to a great many Gentlemen?

Major-General SEELY: I presume all this happened while I was away from this country. I will make inquiries, and will make some such statement if facts are as stated.

OVERSEAS TROOPS (REPATRIATION).

Major EDWARD WOOD (by Private Notice): asked the Secretary of State for War if he will say what are the number of Australian, Canadian, and South African troops, respectively, who have been returned to their respective countries since the commencement of the Armistice?

Captain GUEST: I asked my hon. and gallant Friend to repeat this question, as I regret to say there were inaccuracies in. some of the figures in the answer given on Monday. It should also have been pointed out that the figures for Canada, Australia, and New Zealand included men in process of repatriation who have been evacuated from France and are en route viâ the United Kingdom, and that the South African total included men repatriated direct from East Africa to South Africa. The detailed figures are as follows:

Total.


Canada—


Returned to Canada
73,439



Evacuated from France and en route via United Kingdom
43,671





117,110


Australia—


Returned to Australia (including 1,582 repatriated direct from Egypt)
42,982



Evacuated from France and en route via  United Kingdom
22,172





65,154


New Zealand—


Returned to New Zealand (including 932 repatriated direct from Egypt)
17,243



Evacuated from France and en route via United Kingdom
8,962





26,205


South Africa—


4,816 repatriated, of whom 3,807 were repatriated from East Africa.

BILLS AND MOTIONS (BALLOT).

Ordered,

"That so much of the Order of the House of the 12th February as gives precedence to Government Business shall not apply to the Sittings of the House on Fridays, the 21st and 28th March, or at 8.15 p.m. on Tuesday, the 25th March, and Wednesday, the 26th March; that all Members who desire to ballot, whether for Bills or for Motions, for Tuesday, 25th March, and Wednesday, 26th March, do hand in their names at the Table during the Sitting of the House on Thursday, 13th March, or Friday,14th March, and that a copy of the Notice of such Bill or Motion
be handed in, at the latest, during the Sitting of the House on Monday, 17th March; that the Ballot for the precedence of the said Bills and Motions be taken on Monday, 17th March, at a convenient time and place to be appointed by Mr. Speaker; and that the presentation of Bills on Tuesday, 18th March, be taken immediately after Questions."—[Mr. Bonar Law.]

Mr. SPEAKER: By virtue of the Order which has just been passed, I appoint Monday at 1 p.m., in Committee Room 10, as the time and place for taking the Ballot for the Bills and Motions.

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.

That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act relating to the Union of Benefices." [Union of Benefices Bill [Lords.]

Dock and Harbour Bills,—

Blyth Harbour Bill.

Bristol Corporation Bill.

Dublin Port and Docks Bill.

Manchester Ship Canal Bill.

Mersey Docks and Harbour Board Bill.

Newport Harbour Commissioners Bill.

Swansea Harbour Bill.

Tees Conservancy Bill.

Tyne Improvement Bill.

Wear Navigation and Sunderland Dock Bill.

Belfast Harbour Bill.

Cork Harbour Bill.

Dover Harbour Bill.

That they have appointed a Committee of Four Lords to join with a Committee of the Commons to consider the above Bills, and propose that the Joint Committee do meet in the Royal Gallery on Thursday, the 27th of March, at Eleven o'clock.

Ordered, That the Committee appointed by this House do meet the Committee appointed by the Lords, as desired by their Lordships.—(Lord Edmund Talbot.)

Message to the Lords to acquaint them therewith.

Orders of the Day — BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.

Mr. ADAMSON: I beg to ask the leader of the House what business it is proposed to take next week?

Mr. BONAR LAW: Perhaps I may say what the business will be for to-morrow. To-morrow we will take the Increase of Rent and Mortgage Interest (Restrictions) Bill, the Civil Contingencies Fund Bill, the Representation of the People (Returning Officers' Expenses) Bill, and the Report stage of outstanding Votes.
Upon Monday and Tuesday, Ministry of Ways and Communications Bill—Second Reading—and upon Wednesday and Thursday, Consolidated Fund Bill.

Sir D. MACLEAN: Will the right hon. Gentleman state, what are the outstanding Votes for Report he proposes to take to-morrow?

Mr. BONAR LAW: Supplementary Votes. All of them, I presume.

Mr. HOGGE: But not the Navy Votes?

Mr. BONAR LAW: I think so. They have to be reported in order to be put into the Consolidated Fund Bill. A promise was given yesterday that other opportunities of discussing those subjects would be given.

Sir J. BUTCHER: Is the promised Aliens Bill to be brought in next week?

Mr. BONAR LAW: I am not sure. It will be brought in this month, because I gave a definite promise that it would be brought in this month.

Mr. R. McNEILL: Are we to have more than one day for the Debate on the Second Reading of the Ways and Communications Bill?

Mr. BONAR LAW: I said that Monday and Tuesday would be given to that Bill. I thought that two days would be wanted.

Mr. GILBERT: As Parliament has now met for a month, can the right hon. Gentleman say when the Housing Bill will be introduced?

Mr. BONAR LAW: It will be introduced most probably next week. I am almost certain of that.

Sir D. MACLEAN: There is one question of some importance with regard to to-morrow's business—that is on the Rent Bill. There are some Government Amendments which I understand were promised for the Report stage. My right hon. Friend is proposing to take the Report stage as well as the Committee stage to-morrow. Is it not important that the House should have an opportunity of considering those Amendments before it goes straight on to the Report stage?

Mr. BONAR LAW: That is so, and I am sorry that they have not been printed so as to be circulated to-day, but I am informed that they will be in the hands of hon. Members to-morrow morning. My right hon. Friend knows that it is of importance that this Bill should get through at once. I therefore hope that all stages will be taken to-morrow.

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY.— [5TH ALLOTTED DAY.]

AIR ESTIMATES, 1919–20.

Considered in Committee.

[Mr. WHITLEY in the Chair.]

NUMBER OF AIR FORCE.

Motion made, and Question proposed,

"That a number of Air Forces, not exceeding 150,000, all ranks, be maintained for the Service of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland at Home and Abroad, excluding His Majesty's Indian Possessions, during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1920."

Orders of the Day — MAJOR-GENERAL SEELY'S STATEMENT.

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for AIR (Major-General Seely): In asking the Committee to accept the Air Estimates which are laid before them to-day, I cannot help recalling that it is almost five years to a day since I was privileged to submit Estimates of £1,000,000 to this House for the War part of the Air Estimates in 1914. We now submit Estimates of £66,500,000, and, as I shall presently show, had the War gone on, it would have been £200,000,000. Before we come to the financial aspect of the matter, I think it would be right, and I am sure the Committee would think it right, that we should pay some tribute to those who have been concerned in raising our air power to such a pitch of intensity as it had reached when
the Armistice was signed. I do that more freely because I had no share in it myself, as I was away during the whole of this period. Of course so great an expansion of any war effort has never been seen. We started then with six squadrons. We finished with about two hundred. We were spending then £1,000,000. At the date of the Armistice we were spending £2,000,000. At the earlier date we could build comparatively few aeroplanes and very few engines. When the Armistice was signed we were building 4,000 aeroplanes a month, or nearly 50,000 aeroplanes a year. I suppose that credit must be given to those who directed affairs and to successive Ministers of Munitions, and those who worked with them for this marvellous expansion. The greatest credit of all is due to the personnel, the pilots and observers, who raised this country's air power to a point which I think we can say without fear of contradiction was not attained either by our Allies or our enemies, and at which we were indeed the masters of the air. That was due, in the first degree, to the astonishing valour of our airmen. It so happened that I witnessed in France the first air combat—it is referred to in Sir John French's first dispatch—when one German aeroplane was shot down. I remember Sir David Henderson saying to me on the same day:
This is the beginning of a fight which will ultimately end in great battles in the air in which hundreds, and possibly thousands, of men may be engaged at heights varying from 10,000 to 20,000 feet.
I said to him:
Is it possible that human endurance and human courage will be equal to that stupendous task?
4.0 p.m.
He thought so, and he was right. I hope I shall shortly publish to the House a record of the War effort of the Air Force. It will be, I am sure, a revelation even to this House—which is specially well informed on air matters, as it has so many Members who have served in the Air Force—of the wonderful things we have done in all the theatres of war. To take only one figure, from that one air combat which I remember witnessing in September, 1914, air combats grew until we have this astonishing figure: During the War just under 8,000 enemy machines were shot down by our pilots in all theatres of war; 2,800 of ours were missing and most of them similarly shot down When we think of what that figure means—probably 40,000 or 50,000 desperate battles in the air,
sometimes far away into enemy territory, occasionally right across wide stretches of sea where an engine failure at any moment might prove fatal, we can only bow our heads in respectful admiration of the incomparable valour of our airmen. Of course, the great reduction which we must now make in numbers will cause considerable hardship to the manufacturers of aeroplanes and to their employés and it will cause great dislocation, but I think the people to whom our sympathies must first be due are the brave young pilots to whom I have referred who will have to return to civil life. It is extraordinarily difficult to demobilise an Army, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary for War and Air knows, and it is difficult to demobilise the Navy; but it is particularly difficult to demobilise an air force, because the training given to a pilot—although he gets a certain amount of engineering knowledge, and although the other knowledge which he obtains is of supreme value to the State in time of war, requiring as it does a standard of skill and courage almost greater than that required in any other walk of life—does not particularly fit a man for civilian employment. Therefore our pilots will find particular difficulty, as compared with the corresponding officers of the Army and Navy, in fitting in the ordinary work of the world, and if I might I would respectfully appeal to all concerned to help in that matter.
On that point may I say that we have come to a certain decision with regard to cadets. There were about 30,000 officers and 25,000 cadets under training when the Armistice was signed. Of course these 25,000 cadets will be required in comparatively small numbers for any purpose of the air, including civilian aviation. So vast a force cannot be required for many a long day now that peace is in sight. The hardest case is that of the Colonials from South Africa, from Australia, and from New Zealand, and some from Newfoundland, and others from other Colonies. We have decided that all Colonial cadets shall receive temporary commissions to be granted as from 12th February, 1919. They will receive gratuities on the men's scale and uniform allowance on the full officer's scale of £50 will be granted. They will have first-class passages for the voyage home to the Dominions and on arrival there the temporary commission lapses and they will receive an honorary commis-
sion of the rank which they held. The cadets, other than Colonial cadets, whose training was discontinued oh account of unfitness, will be demobilised and will receive honorary commissions on demobilisation unless they express a wish to the contrary. It they graduated B before 31st December—and Graduation B means the completion of the first half of the course—they will receive full outfit allowance of £50. If graduated B after that date and not before demobilisation they will receive a refund of the actual expenditure, including issues in kind, up to the maximum of £35.
I hope the Committee will forgive me for having gone into detail on this matter, because the case of the cadets is the hardest one with which we have to deal in reducing our forces to the comparatively small limits which are now found on the Votes which I have read to the House. The total we ask for in money as a Vote on Account is £45,000,000, and that is out of a total estimated—and I dwell on the word "estimated"—of £66,500,000. It is quite impossible, until peace is signed, for us to commit ourselves to a precise sum as a total. We are pretty sure that this is an outside figure; we hope it may be less, but that is our estimate of the outside figure which will be required, and I think the House will see that in the case of the air it is peculiarly difficult to estimate in advance until peace is signed, for the value of Air Forces, especially in outlying parts of the world, such as the Near and Middle East, is so incalculable, as I shall have occasion to show in a few moments, that it might be necessary to reinforce squadrons in disturbed areas even though we were pretty certain it will not be required now. It might, conversely, be quite easy to withdraw squadrons if peace is made on terms more favourable than we think. We ask for £45,000,000 on account, and £66,500,000 is the Estimate which we have arrived at as the outside cost required for the coming financial year up to 31st March of next year. There is a note here comparing the £66,500,000 with £71,000,000 of last year. That is not an accurate comparison at all. The House might well say "this is a ridiculously small reduction of only £5,000,000 as compared with last year," but in last year's account of £71,000,000 there was only the Air Force Account not paid by the Ministry of Munitions and the War Office. The Ministry
of Munitions added to that sum for purely Air Forces £113,000,000, the War Office £4,000,000. So that if we compare like with like we compare £66,500,000 with the total of £188,500,000. We have, in fact, reduced our Estimates almost exactly by two-thirds as a consequence of the Armistice. How difficult it was to make a reduction—and here again I say there are peculiar difficulties for the Air Force—will be seen by these figures. At the day when the Armistice was signed we had outstanding liabilities of £150,000,000 sterling for equipment for the Air Force, the greater portion of it being aeroplanes. We had facilities for making, and were, in fact, making aeroplanes at the rate of 4,000 a month, or nearly 50,000 a year. It is not a matter for which the Air Force can take credit, or discredit—but I think credit,—because the Ministry of Munitions had to deal with this question of the cancellation of contracts. We did not, of course, require anything like the material represented by £154,000,000. The Ministry of Munitions have been able to reduce that sum by just over £89,000,000, leaving a total war liability to be liquidated, some of which was required, but, of course, by no means all, of £66,000,000. Of that sum £39,000,000 will be expended this year and £26,500,000 falls in the next financial year. This is out of the £66,500,000 which we are asking for. One big item, the biggest item, is the £26,500,000 of war contracts, which represents the surviving liabilities which have been retained after the Ministry of Munitions have cancelled the other contracts.

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: This will be wiped off in the current year?

Major-General SEELY: Up to 3lst March this year we shall pay £39,000,000; during the next year, from 31st March—this month—up to 31st March next year, we shall absorb the £26,000,000.

An HON. MEMBER: Might we know approximately how much goes in compensation and how much for goods delivered?

Major-General SEELY: I have some information on the subject, but I think I had better not give it. It is rather long and complicated, and really a matter for the Ministry of Munitions. When the Vote comes up the Ministry of Munitions will be able to explain fully how he has liquidated this and other contracts, if the hon. Member will put a question.
It may be convenient to attempt to divide this sum of £66,500,000 into non-recurring and recurring expenditure. Of non-recurring expenditure we put first this £26,500,000, but, of course, although it is non-recurring expenditure in the sense that it is a liquidation of war contracts, it would not be fair to tell the House that it could be all regarded as non-recurring; because whatever number of squadrons we maintain will require fresh equipment, not up to anything like a sum of £26,500,000, but still a very considerable sum year by year; so that, although we say that for the purposes of strict accounting, £26,500,000 is non-recurring expenditure, it must be borne in mind that there is other expenditure of a similar nature that has to be met in succeeding years.
Now we come to expenditure which is really, as well as theoretically, non-recurring. The first big item is personnel, which is £6,000,000. That applies to all the personnel that is disappearing on the reduction of the Force, both officers and men. The next big item is lands and buildings. This represents part of the vast sums we were spending on aerodromes, hangars, meteorological stations, and all that portion which we cannot require, even when in times of peace we require a considerable expenditure in connection with military and civil aviation for the same purposes of aerodromes and hangars. The next big item is Canada—nearly £1,000,000. This represents repayments to Canada for her contribution to our Air Forces in men, for pay, allowances, and clothing. And here one may he permitted to say that, although this House and the country owes to all the Dominions a debt it can never repay for their help in securing the aerial supremacy of this country, the largest debt in volume is due to the Dominion of Canada. Of course, she had the largest population, and one would not make invidious comparisons as to the services rendered by the various parts of the different Dominions. Canada, it so happens, gave the largest contribution in numbers, and of her services those who know what Canadian airmen did will not require to be reminded. They were second to none.
I commanded Canadian troops nearly all through the War, and I sent more than 100 of my own men to the Royal Air Force. Of course, they corresponded with me, and I kept a friendly eye on their achievements, and naturally, therefore, it happened that I know perhaps better
than most of the great services that Canada rendered to us during the War in the air as well as on land and sea. That brings up our total, if we add the miscellaneous charges of £1,000,000 for petrol, oil, and other miscellaneous charges which are non-recurring to the nonrecurring portion, to £39,000,000. There remain the recurring charges, which comes to about £27,000,000. These recurring charges are, personnel £18,000,000. Then we have for equipment £2,000,000. This does not represent any large number of new aeroplanes outside those included in the £26,000,000. I fear this will be bad news for our great aviation companies, because it means that after the existing orders have been completed there will be but few fresh orders for several months to come. I hope at the earliest possible moment to be able to give an intimation to all concerned of the probable number of aeroplanes, within very wide limits, which will be required in future years. It will be difficult to arrive at the exact figure we require, so that they may know what there is in store. But for the moment it is not possible to given even that estimate, because we canot tell what is the size of the force which it will be necessary for us to maintain until we know what kind of peace we are going to make.
In addition to £2,000,000 for equipment—and these, of course, are all proportionate to the £66,500,000; in the event of our asking for a decreased amount it will be correspondingly decreased, and in the the improbable event of our asking for an increase it will be correspondingly increased—there is a further sum of £2,000,000 for land and buildings. I have dealt so far with personnel and the technical equipment. This is in addition to the very large sum of £5,000,000 which I referred to previously for lands and buildings. This represents the minimum, sum which will be required to complete the aerodromes, hangars, and other equipment which we shall require for the Air Force of the future, and for the needs of civil aviation. A good deal of it is really very necessary, and I hope the House will sanction it in order to increase the comfort of officers and men of the Royal Air Force in all parts of the world, and especially in the remoter aerodromes in this country. Any hon. Member who has been to some of the aerodromes in this country which were necessarily put up in a great hurry during the War, will know how far more uncomfortable both officers
and men are than any men in the Army or Navy, except in the actual theatres of war. I think it was unavoidable when you were expanding the force from 1,000,000 to a 2,000,000 basis. But now that peace is in sight, and hostilities have ceased, we cannot ask officers and men any longer to remain under these conditions. Orders have been given at once, in anticipation of the sanction by the House of these Estimates, or this portion of them, that all men are to have beds to sleep on in this country, and wherever hostilities are not prevailing, and that reasonable furniture for both officers and men shall be provided to give them some kind of modest but reasonable comfort such as is enjoyed by soldiers and sailors in all parts of the world. There is a large item of £2,500,000 for miscellaneous charges. This includes petrol, oil, lubricants, all kinds of miscellaneous services which, so far as I have been able to examine it, cannot be sensibly reduced. It allows, of course, for far less flying than was done in time of war, but I think the sum, large as it is, cannot be reduced. These two items recurring and nonrecurring together, come to a total of £63,000,000. There remains a sum of £3,000,000 which we have specially set aside for experimental research and civil aviation. I do not think the House will grudge this item when I explain the reason for which it is asked.
The Committee will want to know why we want this large sum. It is a reduction by more than two-thirds of what it would have been had the War continued, and by nearly two-thirds of last year's expenditure. I think the Committee will say that is a considerable reduction. I believe the balance has been just in endeavouring to save the taxpayers' money and at the same time in ensuring that there is no undue hardship in the cancellation of contracts on the one hand and no risk to the safety of the State on the other. We provide for the number of men I have stated in the Vote. We estimate a larger figure up to 31st July, thereafter sinking to what we estimate will be our peace figures, approximately 5,300 officers and 54,000 men. We have fixed provisionally the number of squadrons we require at 102. Of these we require a certain number at home. There is not much risk of this country being atacked at present from the air. However disturbed we may regard the state of Europe as being, especially in the
Near East and on the borders of Russia and Prussia, we still can say for the moment that the risk of aerial attack is very small. But he would be a rash man who said there was no risk of this country being attacked in the future, and I am sure all hon. Members who consider the subject will see that the power of aerial attack is so great and so swift and that the preparations for it can be made so secretly that we should be gravely to blame, anxiously as we look forward to a more peaceful world, certain as we are that we shall secure a just and a lasting peace, if we neglected the defence of what I may call our air as we protect our surrounding seas. We therefore retain the nucleus and the organisation of our Home Defence force, and, although we do not want a great many squadrons for the moment, we must have them available for Home Defence in the same way as we maintain our Navy and that portion of our Army which is required for a similar purpose. But of course in defending our islands, and by so doing defending the integrity of our Empire, against hostile attack if it should ever come from the air, we do not rely so much on great numbers as on remaining in the forefront of aerial development, on aerial research, on being able always to have the best aeroplanes of the newest type. It is on being first in the art of flying that we must rely for our aerial supremacy.
In addition to Home Defence there is, of course, the large commitment of the proportion of the force for the Army of the Rhine and for the other Armies of Occupation of the countries with which we have recently been at war. The Secretary of State for War has considered very carefully, in consultation with the Chiefs of the Staff both of the Air Ministry and the War Office and the corresponding officers at the Admiralty, and with myself and General Sykes, as to what shall be the proportion of the Air Force to be maintained with the Armies of Occupation and with the Fleet, and we have arrived at what I think is a just figure. Speaking for myself, I believe the proportion of air force to land and sea forces will be an ever growing proportion. I am not at all sure that within a few years air power may not make fleets and armies as we see them obsolete. Certainly that would be so if the progress in the air were anything like as rapid in the next ten years as it has been in the last ten. But we are dealing with the present, and we have fixed upon
a certain ratio, and as I think a comparatively modest ratio, of power to land and sea power, and on that is based the approximate figure of 102 squadrons which my right hon. Friend has fixed. Of course, in addition to the Rhine forces there are the forces required in Egypt, in Mesopotamia, a few in Archangel and elsewhere, but the greater proportion in Egypt, Mesopotamia and the Near East, and it is there where air power is at its greatest demand. It is there where air development will very likely have its greatest future as it has its greatest present.
The Committee, I know, likes a definite fact. Here is a definite fact. Our political officer at Bagdad not only can but does do the same inspections, where necessary in order to secure continuous friendly relations between the inhabitants of those regions and ourselves, as it is desirable to maintain, in two days as he could do before in two months. I think that one fact is an astonishing justification for this claim that especially in those regions where there are wide spaces with a perfect climate and an almost complete absence of the airmen's real enemy, mist and fog—not wind—and where communications of other kinds are so faulty, you can do things by air which you could not possibly do in any other way. It is there where air travelling might even at once be profitable for all kinds of mails and samples and goods of a like nature. But I am not dealing now with the civil side. On the military side the fact that our political officers at Bagdad can do in two days what he could do in two months is only a symptom of the immense power that is exercised by a squadron or a flight of aeroplanes in these regions. General Salmon himself flew from Cairo to Karachi and on to Calcutta, and another aeroplane did the same trip. General Salmon told me that flying over these regions, which are hardly ever visited by white men and the natives of which had never seen an aeroplane, before, as he saw the houses in the distance, they would be crowded with people looking up to this strange new portent, the aeroplane in the sky, but that as the aeroplane approached in every case they disappeared and not one man over all these hundreds of miles of country ever dared to come out and look the aeroplane straight in the face. As time goes on, no doubt, the natives of
these countries will cease to be so much afraid of our aeroplanes, and their value in securing quick communication and in preventing, perhaps, misunderstanding which would result in a war by the immediate presence of the officer concerned, cannot be exaggerated. I hope, therefore, that the Committee, in sanctioning these Estimates, will bear in mind the great advantage they will be to us in the Near and Middle East.
It may be convenient here, if I say in a phrase, it must be only a phrase, that the possibilities of carrying the mails from. Cairo to India are extremely favourable. How best to do it, whether by carrying them by members of the Royal Air Force or by putting it up to public tender, or by means of a chartered company, something on the lines of the original East India Company, is a matter for future consideration, though not for long delay. What I would like to tell the Committee is that we have the aeroplanes there now which could, in fact, carry the mails. A careful estimate has been made by a responsible officer who has been there, which shows that in his judgment it would be profitable to carry the mails, and the Postmaster-General himself, having gone into the matter, is enthusiastic in support of it, and will co-operate in every possible way as soon as that service can be started. My right hon. Friend the Secertary of State has always said that he believes that this is the first service that could be wisely and profitably undertaken by the air, and he proposes to concentrate the efforts of the Air Ministry on this first. There are, of course, other routes which I will refer to, but this one, having a peculiar strategical value, is the one where we can well make our first start.
We have got a force which we are reducing by three-quarters, the cost of which we are reducing by two-thirds. The Estimate may seem to the Committee a large sum for military aviation, but I do not know that it is so very large when you consider how great a reduction has been made. But I would add this in turning, as I now do, to civil aviation, that you cannot measure in terms of money how much of this will be for the advantage of civil aviation and how much for military aviation. We specifically say £3,000,000 for civil aviation, experiments and research, but far more than that is of advantage to civil aviation which comes out of the military £63,000,000. First of all there are all the military machines which
we are building. No doubt there will be constantly increasing divergence of type between the military and the civil type of machines, nevertheless the building of the military machines is a means of keeping the aircraft industry going. Then there is research for military purposes which is of value for civil purposes also. The great expenditure on meteorology is, of course, of equal value to both. In the case of aerodromes we must obtain and maintain a considerable number all over the world, and nearly all of these will be available for civil aviation, and even those few that are retained, that are retained exclusively—and they are very few in number—for military and naval purposes will, of course, be available on emergency for emergency landings. Therefore we cannot measure in terms of money how much of our military expenditure is of value to civil aviation; but we can and do say that the whole resources of the Royal Air Force, as far as is consistent with the purpose of their military duties, are and will remain at the service of civil aviation. On the side of civil aviation, pure and simple, I might say that we take of this sum of £3,000,000, specifically, £2,000,000 for research and experiment, £500,000 for special new types of machines, £500,000 which has been asked for by General Sykes, Chief of Civil Aviation for the special purposes of his Department, in addition to the other large sums which are available for civil aviation, as I have described them. I cannot say that that £500,000 is a final figure. General Sykes himself said to me, "The worst thing to do is to definitely lock up money which you do not want at once to use." Therefore, it is much wiser to take a modest figure to start in order to see how far it will go for the necessary purposes which I hope now to describe to the Committee.
What is to be the duty of the Controller-General of Civil Aviation, who has charge of the civil side of the Air Ministry? His first duty will be to complete the international agreement in Paris in regard to the future of flying. Flying is and must remain in many respects an international; business. There are no natural boundaries in the air, and you cannot have successful civil aviation unless you come to an agreement first with the Allies, and then with the rest of the world, as to the way in which flying is to be conducted. We have done much already, and General
Sykes was our representative in Paris all through the earlier stages of the negotiations. We are far more advanced than any other country in the preparations made for civil flying. I am very glad of criticism, and the more we are criticised the better it will be for us. If the suggestion is that we have not done enough—well, I quite agree, we can never do enough—but if the suggestion is that we have done less than other countries I would say that that is erroneous so far as our information goes. We are far further advanced than any other nation. We are the first nation to have legislation such as we passed the other day. We are the first nation to have regulations for our own civil flying agreed to by all concerned. We are the first nation who have drawn up a draft of an International or Inter-Allied Convention. The draft of this Inter-Allied Convention has been agreed to, I am glad to say, by the Dominions and India. We have shown it to the other Allies, and I hope and believe that in great degree they will accept the principles contained in our draft. There has already been the first meeting of the air side of the Peace Conference, and the next meeting as at. present arranged is on Monday, when my right hon. Friend has directed that General Sykes and myself, with technical officers, shall represent this country in Paris. I hope I shall be able to report to the Committee before very long that the principles of the draft aerial convention we have drawn up have been generally assented to by our Allies, and if they are, I have little doubt that the other nations of the world will shortly join.
The next duty on the civil side will be to plan air routes at home and abroad, and not only to plan them but to get them ready. The Controller-General has already drawn up a list of the aerodromes that will be required in this country for civil aviation, as well as those required for military purposes. As soon as we have settled, as we practically have done now, on the required aerodromes, we shall set to work to equip them properly with meteorological stations, if not all, a great number with sound and light signal stations, with beacon stations, with aerial buoys; in fact, balloons with special marks, with telephone and telegraph stations, with directional wireless as well as ordinary wireless, enabling you to direct your aeroplane from the ground by information you send by wireless, and, I am glad to say, with wireless telephony, in which during the last few days we have
achieved a result which the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Sir H. Norman) knows we have been trying to achieve for many years. We have got a wireless telephone with which on the same machine you can both send and receive from the same operator. Until a few days ago it was possible for one aeroplane to communicate to another, but it was not possible for the same aeroplane to receive an answer. Now the difficulties are overcome and we have got a satisfactory instrument which does this remarkable thing, which will be of immense value to military flying. Therefore the second duty is that we have to complete the aerial routes at home and abroad.

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: Can the right lion. Gentleman say whether the completion of these routes and the fitting up of aerodromes is to come out of the £3,000,000 for civil aviation?

Major-General SEELY: For this year we estimate that is all we shall be able to spend. A good deal of what I have described is already in existence at the stations. Some new things will have to be put in. We have taken this money, and in this case I am glad to say we have not been hampered in any way by the Treasury. We have got what we asked. I think we have. At any rate, I am sure that if the Committee approves, the Treasury will raise no formal difficulty to a sum which they have already provisionally approved. Abroad much has already been done which is not known in the making of aerial routes. We have surveyed the whole aerial route from Africa to India—that is, from Cairo to Karachi—andaeroplanes have actually flown from Calcutta. We have surveyed the route from Cape to Cairo. There are surveying parties out there at this moment. There are three parties in Africa between Cairo and the Cape who are choosing aerodromes and making plans for the great air route to be opened. I say nothing about the Atlantic route, because that is a difficult matter, and the less said about it the better until we are sure we can do something at it. It is no good boasting that you can do this, that, and the other until you have seen your way clear.
The next duty in the Civil Aviation Branch, under General Sykes, will be to examine and advise on all schemes of aerial transport and to assist them in any way in which the Air Ministry can do so.
And the Air Ministry can assist a great deal, because, owing to the fact that the whole of this great system has grown up during the War, nearly all the pilots and, in fact, all the best brains are either in the Royal Air Force or the Air Ministry or are found among the different firms and inventors who worked for us during the War—because everybody who had a plan, an idea, or a factory ungrudgingly threw it into the common stock during the War. As we have so great a proportion of the pilots and the brains, we can help very greatly in all aerial plans. Fourthly, there will be the registration and licence of pilots and aircraft for all civil purposes. We are bound to perform functions such as fall upon corresponding Government Departments with reference to vessels at sea. But as much is taken from the shoulders of the Government in the case of ships by the co-operation of Lloyd's and "Lloyd's Register," we hope that those two great bodies will assist particularly in the matter of inspection. I had the privilege of meeting members of both bodies within the last few days, and I think that they will co-operate with us. Certainly we will be very grateful to them if they will. And a scheme of insurance such as they have adumbrated will be of great value in setting the industry on a sure foundation, the Government mean time maintaining, as in the case of the sea, its special responsibility for the safety of the public.
I would like to pay a special tribute to various men of science who have been good enough to advise and help me in considering the various subjects on which I have touched to-day, notably Lord Rayleigh, Sir Richard Glazebrook and members of his committee, and Sir Charles Parsons and many others have been good enough to write me fully their views as to the possibility of future aerial travel and transport, because, after all, this is a scientific question first and foremost, and it is men of that type, and the younger men of science, who can alone lead us along the right path and help us to secure good results in peace time after the tremendous advance which has been made in air travel during the time of the War. Everyone of these men dwells upon the enormous advantages of continuous research, the vital importance of providing money for it, the essential need of the experiments which must be carried out on methods of propulsion, on the structure of wings, on stability, and on retarding machines on
landing. All these and kindred subjects are of vital importance, and on them depends really the future of civil aviation.
It is not a dream to think that we may make great advances. We have made many remarkable discoveries during the War. I have referred to one—wireless telephony—which we have at last perfected. There are many others. I have here a long list of the things that have been done. I will only mention one or two. There is one which will interest this House because a Member of this House, the Member for Chatham (Colonel Moore Brabazon), had a very large share in inventing a most useful apparatus—the air camera—by means of which we can take a. series of photographs from the air and from great heights which will give yon a more accurate survey of the land over which you pass than you could obtain by weeks or months of surveying in the ordinary way. That has been of incalculable value during the War. This only requires to be stated to show what its value will be in time of peace. Another remarkable invention, if you can call it an invention, because it is an adaptation of what was known before, is directional wireless. The Germans were the first, I am advised, to use directional wireless with effect, but fortunately for us we could always intercept them, and as we had got their code the directional wireless which enabled them to fly enabled us to know exactly where to attack them. Bat we had a system of directional wireless which had most of the advantages but none of the drawbacks of theirs Now that peace is come there is no need to further conceal the fact that we have been able to direct machines from the ground with complete success, and, in the view of the experts who have charge of this particular arrangement, is in its infancy. One of the greatest problems of the air—to know where you are after a long flight in misty weather, through a medium not travelling a few miles an hour as on the sea, but fifty or sixty or seventy miles—may by this means be overcome.
In the way of actual experiment it will interest the House to know that before the War ended we were experimenting not in the way of laboratory experiments, but in actual design, with various types of a novel kind. There is one machine now being built, a seaplane of a very novel type of a very great size. This one has advanced so far that it has actually been flown. It
has five Rolls-Royce engines, and carries 13,000 lbs. at the rate of 100 miles an hour, which is a very large weight to carry at that speed. Another experimental aeroplane is being built which is even larger. It was not intended for peaceful purposes, but we hope that it will be of use now that peace has come. It has a span of 141 feet, it is 85 feet long, and will carry a useful load of just under 20,000 lbs. This is not completed, but if we can take a line from the performance of the seaplane it should probably be a success. Moreover, we have another aeroplane of which the plans are completed, far larger than either of those, with eight engines, developing possibly a very considerable speed, and taking a much larger load than either of those two to which I have referred. Then we have under construction an entirely novel type of aircraft, which I will not particularise, but of which one can say, although it is quite possible that it may not succeed, that the mathematicians say that it should attain a speed hitherto quite undreamt of, and, of course, having qualities of a kind quite different from anything which we have seen. I hope later on in the year that I may be able to give some information about this somewhat remarkable invention. But even if it fails we shall learn useful lessons from it.
Sir Charles Parsons tells me one thing which I think will be new to most Members of the House. It certainly was to me. It is as to the properties of airships which, in his judgment, contain immense possibilities in the future. The tractor power required to pull a given load, given the same speed, varies almost exactly inversely with the size of the vessel. Suppose you take an airship 750 feet long and assume it to have a speed of 60 miles an hour and a displacement of 64 tons, the estimate is that you will require 5 per cent, of that 64 tons in order to pull your vessel at 60 miles an hour. But if you increase the length to 1,500 foot and get, as you would do with the same form, not 48 but 164 tons, you would require not 5 per cent. but 2½per cent, in order to give that the same speed—that is, by doubling the size of your vessel, you require only half the horse-power to do the same work. Sir Charles Parsons pointed out to me further that although this does not apply in the same degree to sea vessels, it is to a certain extent true with regard to them. But here designers are limited and have throughout been limited by the fact that harbours do not accommodate vessels of
more than a certain size without the expenditure of dredging which would, of course run into tens of thousands and millions if you once got vessels eight or ten times their present length. But in the air there is no such limitation. The atmosphere reaches up to 50 miles and the depth of harbours is limited as a rule to 40 feet. So, in his judgment, there is an immense possibility for the airship, and I quote Sir Charles Parsons, who has been good enough to write me a memorandum on the subject, because of him you may say that he has that most valuable brain which combines great speculative power with, as everyone knows, the power of concrete application to turbines and other practical things in the highest possible degree.
There are other things of great possibility. There are flying boats which may do wonderful things, especially on the great navigable rivers of the world. From the sea to the source of the Nile is, I think, between 4,000 and 5,000 miles. My right hon. Friend (Mr. Churchill) travelled it the whole way and he ought to know. There you have a perfect landing ground the whole way for a flying boat. The sea is not a perfect landing ground because the waves are rough, but a thing like a river does, so those who fly seaplanes inform me, provide a perfect landing ground. When one looks at a map of the world and sees the navigable rivers, up which ships can only slowly toil at an average of six or seven miles, and are then constantly stopped by rocks and other obstacles, all of which are nothing to a seaplane, one sees the immense possibilities of scaplane travelling in the future, in commending those Estimates to the Committee I must apoligise for having spoken at greater length than I had intended, but the subject is of such absorbing interest and of such vital importance that I trust I may be forgiven. Nobody can ever be certain he is right in this matter. It is so speculative, the whole business is so new, that everyone must be prepared to make a fair number of mistakes. But that is no reason why we should not try and try our hardest, and why we should not enlist the best brains in our support as we have had during the War, and I am quite sure that if we do that we shall be able to retain that which we now most certainly have, the first place in the world in air development.

5.0 P.M.

Captain WEDGWOOD BENN: I only rise to ask the right hon. and gallant
Gentleman one or two questions on matters which I think he has not touched upon in his extremely interesting speech. I am in a rather peculiar position in this matter, because, taking the figures for war services generally, it seems to me an extraordinary thing that we should, after winning the War, spend six times as much on armed services as we did before we started the War. But if you are going to spend six times as much, I do not consider that the right hon. Gentleman has taken an excessive if he has even taken an adequate proportion in the figure which he has set aside for aerial purposes. The first question which I wish to ask is this: I believe that the old practice of the House was to give a general sum under Vote 1, but when Vote 1 was asked for all the details of the other Votes were given to the Committee at the same time, so that although by Treasury sanction money given to Vote 1 was actually used for the air, the Committee was in possession of all the figures at the time when they gave the money to Vote 1. We are not so to-day. We are not in possession of the figures under the various heads, and yet we are voting to-day for the Service £45,000,000, which may be sufficient to carry on the Air Office until the time when the remainder of the Votes can betaken under the guillotine, so that the right hon. Gentleman will see that we are giving him the money without being apprised of the particulars, and without any guarantee that we shall be in possession of the details at all. I would, therefore, like to ask him whether he will give us another opportunity before the end of the Session of debating the Air Service in a general manner when we are in possession of the details under the various heads? I was gratified to hear what the right hon. and gallant Gentleman said about the amount of money to be set aside for research, navigation, meteorology, laying out of routes, and also experiments in material, with engines, and so forth. I hope that in the matter of the large new designs of which he spoke, practical experiments will be made before too much money is spent, because everybody who knows these seaplane stations in the country is aware that during the War there were immense machines, absolutely new, lying in the seaplane stations which had never flown at all, and on which very large sums had been spent, on excellent plans, but without the necessary practical
tests having taken place. I do not know whether it would be possible to suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that in the management of the research branch there should be associated, outside the fighting Services altogether, the services of distinguished men of science who take a general interest, but are not associated directly with the Air Service. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman spoke of our foremost position in civil aviation. Of course, we want to be first; but he must remember that for months past in the United States of America they have been running mails and publishing the costs month by month, showing the results achieved; and, while that is so, we can hardly claim, although we may desire it, to be absolutely in the foremost position.
On the Service side, I want to ask the Air Minister one or two questions. He gave a very interesting description of the possibilities of airships. Can he tell us anything about the present relations of the Air Ministry to the Airship Department? I think the personnel is trained by the Ministry and left to the Admiralty, and I think the construction is undertaken by the Admiralty. We should be interested to hear whether any further step has been taken in the direction of associating the Airship Branch with the Air Service, because, in the matter of international routes and mail-carrying, pioneer services of one kind and another, it is quite obvious that the airships must play a very important part. I would like to ask the Air Minister, also, whether he can renew the assurance he gave during the Debate on the Address that nothing whatever is being done to disrupt the integrity of the Service, and that there is no danger whatever of either of the fighting Services desiring to take away from the unity of the Air Service? I, and many others I am sure, regard that as an extremely important point. In the Debate on the Address the Air Minister spoke about the advantage of the association of the two offices. I am afraid, although he may have convinced all the others, that he did not convince me, but he said that, among other advantages, one was that it enabled them to keep in step with demobilisation. That, of course, is however, only temporary. Then he spoke on the question of the redistribution of the garrisons in accordance with the possibilities of Air Service and Army. I have no doubt the Chairman will stop me if I get out of order, but this is a Vote for the Air
Service and the right hon. Gentleman said that one of the great advantages of combining the two offices was that the Air Service would be able to do work previously done by the Army. I should like the right hon. and gallant Gentleman to explain a little in detail, if he can, what has been done in the way of taking over by the Air Service some of the work in distant garrisons previously done by the Army, as that is one of the reasons he gave for the dual arrangement. The Under-Secretary spoke of publishing a record of the work of the Air Service. That would be very welcome, I am sure, to all who take an interest in it, and I wonder if it would be possible for him to publish an official record of the enemy aircraft destroyed by squadrons. I throw that out as a suggestion, because the esprit de corps of squadrons is a very valuable factor, and I think the members of a squadron, while they may desire no personal or individual glory for themselves, are justly anxious that the fame of their own squadron should be known. The right hon. Gentleman's predecessor gave a definite pledge to the House that a separate medical service would be set up for the Air Service. That was given in terms, and I would like to ask what steps are being taken to fulfil that pledge?
There is only one other point to which I would allude, and that is the position of observers in the Air Service. I speak with some feeling in this matter, but, constantly observing things from a very subordinate position in the Service, I have been struck with the mistake which is being made by not giving a sufficient status to the observer. Let me speak clearly of what I mean. The pilot is a man who must be young, because there must be that quick response I from the brain to the hand to enable him to make a good flyer. A pilot's flying life, certainly in war-time, is very short. I do not mean that he is killed, but that his nerve, as everybody knows, goes after a certain time under war conditions. The pilot is a young man who rejoices in the thing just as a horseman rejoices in riding, and he is proud of the way in which he can manipulate his machine, and proud of his superior ability over other pilots, but I the observer should be quite a different type of man, a man who is interested in the mechanical part of flying, in what are popularly called the gadgets. But at the present time and during the War, so far as my experience went, the observer was only regarded as a sort of apprentice
pilot, and was treated with the very proper contempt with which a journeyman would treat an apprentice. That was all right if he was only a tyro and was going to become a pilot, but by that system you discouraged a large number of people who had the necessary experience to make very valuable observers in the air indeed, although they were not young enough to make good pilots. If you take such things as the right hon. and gallant Gentleman has referred to—aero-photography, for instance—the ordinary pilot regards it as a bore, and would much rather be flying about and exhibiting his skill. The same applies to bomb-dropping, although I hope it will be many years before that is again called for. The ordinary pilot did not want sights for dropping bombs, and could do it better with the eye, and as a matter of fact I believe that with the amount of training they got with the bomb sights they could drop them better by eye than with the sights, but it does not make for the success of aviation. In wireless the thing is worse still. The ordinary pilot will not be bothered to learn. He gets up to a figure of eight words per minute. and, of course, any boy in the Naval Service can do twenty or twenty-four words a minute, and if you will not have in the machine a man who will train himself and will take an interest in it, if you are only going to have a man who is regarded as a, permanent inferior, you will shut out all those people who are prepared to take the trouble, and you will not get the mechanical development that is so desirable. One way in which you will get it will be by differentiating between functions. When there is a big machine there will be one man entirely for wireless, for instance, and one man for another job, but the point is that you want a man whose prime interest is in the mechanical part, and until you give the observer a definite place in the Air Service you are throwing away a good deal of useful material. In the French and in the Italian services, certainly in the latter, an observer was in command. The poet D'Annunzio was in command of a big raid on Vienna, He is an observer, and it was the custom to put observers always in command of the Reconnaissance Squadrons, and the result was that you did encourage a type of man which is very useful, whereas in our squadrons I have repeatedly seen men keen on wireless or photography turned down and discouraged, and practically forced into becoming second-rate pilots because they had no chance of promotion or honour in
the Service in their own special lines. I commend that point to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman, and I shall be very grateful to receive a reply to the various questions I have asked.

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: Speaking on the Air Service opposite to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman carries my mind back a good many years, to the time when we used to join in controversy as to the future of the Air Service of this country, and I should like to take this opportunity of congratulating my right hon. friend in having put before us such wonderful Estimates, and in a way which I am sum commended itself to the entire Committee. May I take up the point raised by my hon. and gallant Friend who has just sat down, that of the alteration of the position of the observer. I quite agree with what he has said. It takes me rather to another point, which I proposed many years ago, and that is in regard to the position of the non-commissioned officer pilot. My right hon. Friend knows that many of the German squadrons were piloted entirely by non-commissioned officers, and the observer was really in command of the particular machine, and whether that could be so in our Air Service or not I do not know, but I suggest to my right hon. and gallant Friend that he should extend the position or the number of non commissioned officer pilots. The commissioned pilot, if I may say so, is rather an expensive article to use, and I also think that as flying goes on you will find a very large number of what I may term the chaffeur type of engineers who would make excellent pilots, and do it at much loss cost to the country than the officer pilot I should like to join my right hon. Friend in what he said as to the magnificent gallantry of the Air Force. I do not know that the country really realises even yet all that it owes to the efforts of our airmen, both in France and in the other theatres of war. I cannot add anything to what he has said, but I wholeheartedly join in everything he did say on that point.
I am very glad also he told us that he is going to deal fairly by the cadets whose career was cut short by the Armistice. There have been many young men who, after having been training for a few weeks or months—some of them have come over from Canada for the purpose—have had their flying career cut short. I am very glad to hear my right hon. Friend is going to deal handsomely with them, and that
the cadets will go back to Canada feeling that they have been well treated by the Mother Country, although their services are no longer required. With regard to the Estimates, of course it is only because we are just recoverng from the War that this Committee is asked to pass a lump sum of £66,000,000 without the detailed Estimates we were used to prior to the War. I am not complaining of that, but I am going to ask my right hon. Friend to realise that on the next occasion he presents Estimates we shall ask him to present the ordinary detailed Estimates, and to tell us beforehand exactly how much is allocated to aerodromes, the number of squadrons, and so forth. I am also glad to note that the non-recurring expenses—what I may call the wiping-up of the War—will all be cleared up by March, 1920, so far as the Air Force is concerned, and by that time we shall be able to start afresh with all the wreck of the War cleared away. Then we shall know—and I speak as one who demanded higher Estimates in the past—whether the country will be able to afford £45,000,000 per annum for the Air Force in the future.

Major-General SEELY: It will not be £45,000,000.

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: The primary necessity of the country is economy, economy, economy, even in the Air Service, which I have tried to increase so much in the past. I am very glad to see that the Secretary of State agrees with that view. I am perfectly certain that the aviation companies and the engineering companies, who may feel, in the language of the Air Service, "a draught" when these large orders are cut off, will realise it is impossible for my right hon. Friend to go on giving the same orders as during the War, and they will cut their coat according to their cloth. I was exceedingly glad to hear about the improvements in the aerodromes for officers and men. I had the privilege last year, under one of my right hon. Friend's predecessors, of inspecting a large number of aerodromes, and I made a report on the conditions of the accommodation for officers and men. The conditions were very bad indeed in many aerodromes, and not merely with regard to such things as chairs, tables, and beds. I wonder whether he would be able to include arrangements for outdoor amusements and recreation, such as football grounds, cricket grounds, tennis courts,
swimming baths, and the like. After all, a pilot cannot spend more than a couple of hours at the outside in the air, and very few are able to stand that. They may spend after that two or three hours at lectures and so forth. The remainder of the time they have been at a loose end. I do not want to make accusations against them at all, but my right hon. Friend knows that in certain squadrons there has been a lack of discipline, and I put that down entirely to the lack of recreation. In dealing with the question of the beds and chairs referred to, it is only quite a small point, but, as I am on economy to-night, may I suggest that probably the Army and Navy have thousands of these things which might be taken over, instead of buying new things. One figure that my right hon. Friend did not give—or, if he did, I missed it—is the number of pilots he intends to have in the future. He told us there were to be 102 squadrons, and, I think, 5,300 officers. I should like to know how many are to be devoted to staff work in London and other centres, and how many actual pilots he is going to have, because pilots are the backbone, and you cannot make them in an emergency?
Will my right hon. Friend forgive me if I criticise one point with regard to military aviation, and that is the connection between the Air Service and the War Office. I think my right hon. Friend, if I could see into his head, would rather agree with me. It seemed to me that, in dealing with the future of the Air Service, he was rather fettered by the fact that he was directed by the man who is also responsible for the Army as well as the Air Service. I cannot imagine why it was felt necessary to put my right hon. Friend in command of these two Services. Here is a right hon. Gentleman practically in the position of a Secretary of State coming here to-day and putting before the House an enormous Estimate of £66,000,000. He does not do it on his own authority, but according to the directions received from the Secretary of State for War. It is only a year ago that they made up their minds to have a separate Air Force, and to have a separate Secretary of State for Air. They did it after very careful consideration, and I believe I am right in saying that the present Secretary of State for War was a member of the Government which decided that it was necessary to have a separate Secretary of State for Air. He did not resign; he
did not show that he disagreed with the Government. That was done when it was most difficult to accomplish it—in the middle of a great war. Even then it was thought to be necessary to have a separate Secretary of State, and if it were desirable to go through all the possibilities of disruption in bringing together the Naval and Military Air Services, and all the trouble which we know there was in welding them into one Service during the War, now that they have fully justified themselves and the action of the Government, the Government go back and put my right hon. Friend in as sole Secretary of State for the two Services. My hon. and gallant Friend (Major Baird) who was in charge of the Bill was asked by an opponent why it was necessary to have a Secretary of State, and the answer of my hon. and gallant Friend was,
The head of the fighting Service will have to discharge various duties row discharged by the Secretary for War, and which cannot be performed under our Constitution except by a Secretary of State. I will give one example. I believe the channel of communication between the Sovereign and an officer who feels himself aggrieved is only through a Secretary of State. It would not be satisfactory if an officer of the Air Service felt aggrieved that he should have to apply to his Sovereign through the Secretary of State of another Department.
Which is exactly what he has to do at the moment. My right hon. Friend shakes his head. I know he is a super-man, but I am not sure he is able to take on both forces. Another reason which the Government gave for a separate Secretary of State was this:
To give to the Air Force the same status as we give to the Army and Navy to recognise that the air is an element in which it is as necessary to make provision for national defence and offence as it is for us to do on sea and land"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 12th November, 1917, Vol. 134, Vol. 99.]
That Bill was brought in by the Government, and backed by the whole force of the Government, and I believe the Leader of the House and the present Lord Chancellor took part in the Debate and supported a separate Secretary of State for Air. What did my right hon. Fried say the other day? He merely reiterated the Air Council's statement that
The status of the Ministry is in no way changed; it remains completely separate and independent.
How can it be separate and independent when he is Secretary of State for War and
he is on the top of the Under-Secretary? The Under-Secretary actually used these words in his speech to-day:
I have been directed by my right hon. Friend to proceed to Paris.
There is independence!. He cannot even proceed to Paris without being directed by the Secretary of State. What can the Under-Secretary do? I have the greatest respect for him, and I should be pleased to see either him or my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War as Secretary of State for Air, but I am not sure that I like the combination. Is not every decision which he makes liable to be revoked by the Secretary or Slate for War? Cannot the Secretary of State for War come down and say, "I want this or that done," and I put it to the Secretary of State for War that his views as to the needs of the Air Service and the relation which the Air Service bears to the main offensive and defensive needs of the country, must be tinged by his position as Secretary of State for War. In other words, he is nine-tenths Secretary of State for War and one-tenth Secretary of State for Air. What is the position of the Naval Air Force at the present time? Is the Naval Air Force going to be now and in the future under my right hon. Friend? Is my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War going to be the arbiter between the Army and the Navy as to how many squadrons, seaplanes, balloons, and so forth are to be allocated to the Navy or Army? It is not quite fair on the Navy that it should be so. There was grave difficulty in bringing those two Services together, and I venture to say that before a year or so is passed we shall find a demand from the Admiralty to get back their own Service, and keep it independent from the Secretary of State for War. I agree with my right hon. Friend that demobilisation of the Air Service will walk in step with the War Office. Of course, it will be so if he is at the head of the War Office, and he sets the step.
I want frankly to put this point—because I have been rather a fanatic on the subject of the air, and my right hon. Friend never said a word about the Independent Air Force—is that force to be continued? Of course one is making a speech on the basis that there may be another war; the Estimates are brought in on that basis. Of course a League of Nations may supervene and be a great success, and there may be no more war so long as the youngest Member of this House
lives, but we must base this on the possibility of another war. What are the preparations for an Independent Air Force? One of the greatest things done in the War was the work of the Independent Air Force under General Trenchard, which had more to do with breaking the morale of the Germans than anything else on land or sea. Is that force going to be continued?

The SECRETARY Of STATE for WAR (Mr. Churchill): Certainly. There will be an Air Force separate from the squadrons allocated to the service of the Army or the Navy.

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: Who is to be the controlling factor of that Independent Air Force? Up till now it was the Air Ministry; after now it will be the Secretary of State for War.

Mr. CHURCHILL: No; it will be the Secretary of State for the Royal Air Force.

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: Really, it suggests the operas of Gilbert and Sullivan, or perhaps I might say Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Which is going to represent the Air and which the War Office I do not know, but I know what some of our friends of the Air Force would think. I do want to plead for the independence of the Royal Air Force, and I cannot help thinking there is behind this dual Secretary of State the question as to whether the Air Force is going to be a mere adjunct to the Army or a separate means of killing war on its own account. The old type of Army officer looks upon the aeroplane as a kind of flying tank or long-range gun. They do not even at this date realise the possibilities of complete air warfare apart from land warfare. The Under-Secretary does. He sees the possibility of aerial warfare in the future almost without land warfare, but I do not believe for a moment that is the view of the Army Council or of the gallant soldiers who, necessarily brought up in land warfare, advise the Secretary of State for War in whichever capacity he chooses to be advised.
War in future, I think, will be air war. My right hon. and gallant Friend told us of new inventions which he hopes to put before the House in a few months which would ensure far more rapid flight than anything we have known. I remember—and I am quite sure hon. Members will
remember—that five years ago the difference in speed, parts, and the altitude of aeroplanes—well, the difference between then and now is marked with emphasis. I remember in this House asking the Under-Secretary if he could produce machines that would rise 5,000 feet high and fly 50 or 60 miles an hour, and I said if so we should be satisfied. Now they rise 30,000 feet, and fly 150 miles an hour. There is no reason whatever to doubt that the progress in the next five years will be as great as in the last five years. In the last five years we have had to fight against difficulties. Now we find that all that the War has accomplished is in our favour. I am perfectly certain that the progress of the last five years will be as nothing as compared with the progress of the next five years. May I remind my right hon. and gallant Friend of a speech he made a few weeks ago, not in this House, but at the Imperial Air Force dinner? He said:
We shall have an Air Force for military purposes still. People say to me you must have an Air Force equivalent to your land and sea forces. I say, 'Oh, yes, but it would be wise to have an even greater proportion of Air Force.
And it might be wiser still to have a larger proportionate Air Force than either the sea or land forces. That is the real thing I want to get at—as to whether the views of my right hon. and gallant Friend the Under-Secretary are to prevail as to the enormous possibilities—nay the certainties, of aerial warfare, or whether the views of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War, coloured by the views of a quite large number of very gallant officers of the Army Council, are to prevail, and the Air Service is to be—quite a useful adjunct of the forces of the Crown! If I may say so, I think the future of the land force will be to march in and to wipe up the mess created by the bombing squadrons of the Air Force which will go across the land ahead of the land army and the army by sea, and by their flying squadrons will range over every part of the country.
I have spoken of the military side, because I have always felt that perhaps the greatest force of aerial industry will be the military engagements. At the same time I was very glad indeed to hear that my right hon. Friend is taking the steps necessary to help on civil aviation. Years ago we had command of the sea because we had the coaling stations of the world. To-day we can have command of the air,
because we have the landing-stages of the world. We are in a better position, a great deal, in respect to aviation, than any other country of the world can possibly be, because throughout the world we have in our Colonies and Dependencies the great facilities which are enjoyed, and can be enjoyed, by no other country in the world. Consider the whole of Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, East Africa, the whole of the Middle East, Canada, and the islands of the Pacific! We can develop, and we must develop, civil aviation, because we have the facilities which no other nation can possibly have. I want to ask, in dealing with civil aviation, in regard to the arrangement made by General Sykes at the Paris International Convention: Will my right hon, and gallant Friend tell us whether that has been taken into consideration in the draft treaty which was drawn up by the Civil Aerial Transport Committee some little time ago, which dealt very largely, and I think very carefully, with these subjects? I do not desire to press for details of the treaty, but if my right hon. Friend can assure the Committee that the points raised in the draft treaty have been or will be considered before any final arrangements are made in Paris, I shall be satisfied.
Nothing whatever was said by my right hon. and gallant Friend about the question of safety. Civil aviation depends almost entirely upon the safety. I would like to tell ray right hon. and gallant Friend—though there is no need to convince him—as to the future safety of flying, some of the few facts which I took the opportunity of noting down at a lecture I heard given by General Sykes within the last few weeks. War-time training during the last year or two was, of course, far more intense and far more difficult than that necessitated for civil aviation. There was only one fatal accident in the course of 1,170 hours flying. That, I think, should interest people who have sons going into the Civil Air Service, and who may feel now that it is not nearly so dangerous as they may imagine. Since January, 1916, 3,340 officers have been killed on the Western Front in the Air Service. Nearly all of them were shot down by German aeroplanes, while the proportion that died from landing or from machine accidents was very small indeed. During the last two years no less than 1,000,000 hours, amounting to 114 years, have been
flown by the Royal Air Force in France, and the proportion of accidents and deaths have been very small indeed. The Committee, of course, knows that the wonderful performances made by the Communication Squadron some few months ago in order to provide the quickest means of transport between here, and France, Belgium and various parts of England. There were 279 cross-country flights in the last four months of last year—Paris, Nancy, Manchester, York, Birmingham—without one single crash. In these various flights passengers have been carried, including a large number of the members of His Majesty's Government. One is delighted to know that there has not been a single crash. If anybody wants to know the pace they go, in such a recent flight between London and Manchester the rate was 170 miles which was flown in 1 hour 20 minutes. That would not have been done a year or two back, but it will be done as a matter of regularity in a very few years. My right hon. Friend will remember that only a few months ago two D.H/'s carried two American diplomats across to Paris, and the journey took 4 hours and 20 minutes. This shows a very different state of affairs to what we discussed before the War five years ago.
The only anxiety I have in regard to civil aviation is not a very great one. It is, however, that it should not be too much fettered by Government control. We gave my right hon. Friend his Bill a while ago in which was power to make temporary regulations for flying. We gave it to him because we felt it desirable that he should have the power in order that safe flying should get on its legs perhaps the more appropriate simile would be wings—in Great Britain. I do trust that my right hon. and gallant Friend will see that safe flying is not, as military flying undoubtedly was five or six years ago, fettered and hampered by too many restrictions, by too many examinations. Of course, in passenger-carrying flights there must be examination of the machines that are used. I am one of those who believed in the past in military aviation, and I think the Committee will agree that nothing that has fallen from those of us in this House who had that belief has failed to come true. Every prophecy that has been made has been justified, and more than justified by the skill and ability of the Royal Air Force, by the efforts they have made in conjunction with those great scientists who have helped my right
hon. and gallant Friend. I believe the future is equally great in regard to civil aviation. We have the most wonderful pilots at the present time. We have the most wonderful machines. While I sincerely trust that there will be no more war for many, many years to come, I am convinced that our future in war—if there be war—lies in the air. I am equally convinced that by means of civil aviation we shall be able to link together the great Dependencies of our wide-flung Empire.

Lieutenant-Colonel MALONE: I desire to associate myself with the remarks of the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken in congratulating my right hon. and gallant Friend the Under-Secretary on the very comprehensive and far-sighted statement he has given us to-day. This is the third occasion, I think, on which we have had an opportunity of discussing the air since the House met. Possibly the absence of Members shows that they are getting tired of discussing this very important subject. Just, however, so long as those measures come before the House, and just so long as the organisation and administration of the Air Ministry is conducted on lines that are not efficient or effective, so long shall we require to voice our criticisms and objections. The matters which I shall raise to-night are—firstly, of principle, and, secondly, of detail. First, then, as regards the position of the Air Ministry. On 12th February the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dundee, as a result of the pressure from our Amendment to the Address from the Throne, informed us that nothing would be done in the future against the integrity, unity, and independence of the Air Force, which would be sedulously and carefully maintained. Later, in the same Debate, he informed us:
There is no question whatever of rupturing the integrity of the Air Force.
The hon. Gentleman who has just spoken made some remarks about the Admiralty. I do say, and I think the right hon. and gallant Gentleman himself must know, that in the last few weeks the Admiralty have made an offer to the right hon. Gentleman to sever the naval side of the Air Service from the Royal Air Force. I am sure he will not deny that. It is common knowledge. We cannot help hearing these matters, for any correspondence which comes from the Admiralty or the Air Ministry by way of the Strand is
bound to be intercepted by the public. This seems to indicate to me some slight lack of co-ordination between the Ministers in charge of these Departments. The idea of severing the naval side from the Air Force as a whole is a small-minded point of view. We have already seen in the few results of the Independent Force what are the possibilities of a large, powerful, Independent Air Force. If there is another war it will probably be a very terrible war indeed. It is quite conceivable that the air side of it may commence by the launching of enormous flocks of bomb-carrying aeroplanes from the centre of some wild country, such as Russia. Those operations or counter-operations, or the offensive or defensive measures, cannot be said to be either really naval or military. To be prepared for this War—I regret we have to discuss war when we are discussing these Estimates—to take I really a broad vision of the future of the air, requires a specialist air staff and a specialist air-planning section. If this important section of warfare is to be left in the hands of the naval and military staff the scope of operations is bound to be restricted within the limitations of the sea and military frontiers. You cannot really expect to have that long-sighted vision which a specialist air staff alone can give you.
There are a great many other reasons why it is necessary to maintain an Air Service as a separate Service. There is the question of materiel. During the War the need for organising the aircraft industry was the primary cause which brought about the organisation of a separate Air Service. We have got to look upon this matter from the point of view of national economy. What more can you do than to keep the production and inspection, and all the commercial side, in one office? If you have this side split up into two Government Departments, you will have competition, overlapping, and a waste of public money and energy. There is also the question of training, personnel and providing equipment and stores, all of which, from the purely economical point of view alone, as well as from other reasons, are sufficient to justify the retention of an independent Air Ministry. The Air Ministry will have to control the vast civilian reserve of pilots and materiel, and we cannot really say that this can be done by the Admiralty or the War Office, or by either of those Departments.
Then there is the rather subsidiary point of meteorology. At present the meteorological services are divided among four Government Departments—the Admiralty, the War Office, the Air Ministry, and the Meteorological Office at South Kensington. It seems to me that is a question where, from an economical point of view, criticism might be brought to bear. What better Department could look after the elements than the Air Ministry? My right hon. and gallant Friend on the Front Bench opposite mentioned a special Air Medical Service. Anyone who has had any practical experience of the air knows how important it is to make a special study and investigation into the peculiar physiological requirements of air pilots. I offered the suggestion that my hon. and gallant Friend might make a special endeavour to produce a special atmosphere in the Air Service by developing Special Regulations, a particular uniform, and special titles. He might, with the vast service of officers at his disposal, appoint a small Commission to inquire into this matter and report what changes are required. The existing Air Force Regulations are really compiled by cutting up the existing Army and Navy Regulations and gumming the two together, and they are not really conducive to the production of an Independent Air Service. The terms of reference to such a Committee might well be to investigate the existing Regulations, to see what new ones are required to suit the particular requirements of a third Service. That is all I want to say about the Air Ministry.
Before we pass this Vote, I want to ask the Secretary for Air to give us a definite and binding pledge that so long as this financial year continues he will see that no attempt is made to sever the naval and military section from the Air Ministry? On a previous occasion we discussed the question of the subordination of the Air Ministry to the War Office. I associate myself with those hon. Members who are not really convinced with the arguments that were put before us. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dundee (Mr. Churhill) informed us that the Ministry of Defence could not be formed until we had an omniscient staff capable of dealing with the needs of all three Services. There may be a great deal in that, but how much more does that argument apply to the junction of the two Services? Does the right hon. Gentleman claim that he has now a staff which can deal with the
Air Ministry and the War Office? I hope he realises that by this lopsided form of administration he is creating a great deal of unrest in the Air Force, especially on the naval side. I yield to no man in my admiration of the work which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dundee has done in the development of the Air Force. I remember before the War, when he lifted up the Royal Naval Air Service out of the chasm of indifference and apathy, and how it was largely due to the prevision, the initiation, and personal energy of the right hon. Gentleman that the raids on Cuxhaven and Friedrichshafen, and the development of the torpedo-carrying seaplane, were assured, in spite of opposition. We must remember, however, that Ministers may change, and surely we should not base the organisation of the Air Ministry upon the idiosyncracies of individuals. I hope we shall have some better argument for the subordination of one of the most important Departments of State under the War Minister.
There are one or two minor details I wish to deal with before I close. In the first place, there is the question of airships, which are at present "nobody's child." They are built by the Admiralty, the material is partly supplied by the Air Ministry, and the personnel is completely supplied from the Royal Air Force. That is a most anonymous position. It is detrimental to the efficient growth of what will now probably be a very important section of the Royal Air Force. You cannot apply to airships the argument which you applied to "heavier-than-air" craft, in respect to floats and wheels, because if any type of aircraft are amphibious, surely it is airships. The progress of airships in the War has not been very great. When the Armistice was signed everyone will agree we were a very long way indeed behind the Germans in the development of airships, and I think it was largely due perhaps to the right hon. Gentleman who was then Minister of Munitions that more money was not spent on that development. Perhaps as a war measure he was right, but now that we have peace upon us we have a chance to develop what will certainly be an important commercial commodity, and I cannot see how its development can be really assured if it is retained as a side-show to a great naval Department. It is bound to get out of touch with all the latest technical air developments, and also with the develop-
ment of tactics and strategy. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will see his way to rope in this important section of the Air Service as soon as he possibly can.
Whilst I very much deprecate raising the question of any individual officer on the floor of this House, either male or female, I would just like to ask whether it is proposed to employ the services of that distinguished officer who was connected with the inception and development of airships? I understand he has been out of employment for a very considerable time indeed. I know the question if his re-employment has been constantly considered, and injustice to this distinguished officer's great career and reputation, I hope that it will be possible to come to a definite decision one way or the other as soon as possible. I take this opportunity of saying that I hold no particular brief one way or the other for this officer, and I have had no communication at all with him for a very long time, and I put this plea forward on purely impersonal grounds.
There is another side to this question which has been dealt with briefly to-night, and it is the commercial side. Everyone who has spoken to-night has foreshadowed the enormous developments which will take place on the commercial side of aeronautics. Can this side be really efficiently developed as a side-show to the War Office? The developments in the War have been very great indeed, but developments of aircraft in the next few years will be very much greater. At the beginning of the War both the Admiralty and the War Office failed somewhat because they did not appreciate the association necessary btween this and what we call the civilian nation. Consequently, at the beginning, the Admiralty had to divert energy that should have been employed in getting on with the War to organising the Mercantile Marine and the fishing fleets as an auxiliary service. Similarly the War Office had to disgorge many mechanics employed by them in order that the supply of munitions should not be lacking.
6.0 P.M.
The Air Ministry of the future must retain its finger on the pulse of all aerial possibilities. I am not quite sure that everything is being done to further the development of commercial aeronautics. It is only some few weeks ago that we passed the Air Navigation Act as the first real attempt to further this Service. I hear that within the last few days a contract
has been made between the Chinese Government and a well-known British firm for a large supply of aircraft to run a State. Service to China. I am credibly informed that not a single order has yet been placed in this country by the Government for any aircraft for commercial purposes. Not only this, but no Regulations have yet been issued which will enable a private firm to start, organise, and equip a commercial route. It is hardly necessary to tell the House of the enormous possibilities and commercial developments which lie before civilian aeronautics. Take, for example, the case of South Africa. If it were possible to transport by air some of those valuable commodities such as diamonds or gold, instead of sending them by sea, enormous sums could be saved amounting to several hundreds of thousands of pounds due to the saving effected in insurance. I am informed that any risk involved by air transport would be adequately recovered by the insurance companies, and that is only one example. I have not had any practical experience of diamonds myself but, at any rate, that is one example. Another example is the case of the Colonies, where transport is lacking, where there are enormous facilities for air work transporting the commodities of life—food, the mails, and individuals. In fact, there is almost limitless possibilities to developments in the Colonies. If there is to be a future for commercial aeronautics, my right hon. and gallant Friend must pay very special and individual attention to the matter as soon as possible. It has got to be nurtured and suckled most carefully and most assiduously. It is almost impossible to foretell what its future effect upon civilisation will be. As the Channel Tunnel, when it is constructed, will bring about a great bond of sympathy between France and England, so the development of aircraft will be a very potent factor in annealing this great idea of a League of Nations. To-day the Air Minister is passing over the zero hour to a great development I appeal to him to devote particular attention to this side of his work. I rather gather that General Sykes is to be subordinate to the Chief of the Air Staff, which is placing it in a very subsidiary position indeed. I look upon the development of civilian aircraft as so important that it ought almost to be the work of a separate Secretary of State. The Secretary of State for Air has indeed a magnificent opportunity to render a
great and glorious service to civilisation if he will devote himself with special zeal to this side of his work.

Lord HUGH CECIL: I intervene in this discussion with some diffidence because this House, unlike the previous House of Commons, is very rich in the number of Members who have a very much more thorough experience and a much deeper knowledge of the Air Service than anything that I can pretend to possess. My only claim upon the attention of the Committee is rather to be founded on the circumstance that I am a politician than that I am an officer in the Air Force. A politician is by profession an observer of human nature, and in the main part of the observations that I propose to offer it is as an observer of human nature rather than as an expert in aeronautics, which I am certainly not, that I presume upon the Committee's time and patience. Before entering upon the main topic to which I wish to devote myself, let me associate myself with my hon. Friend opposite in saying how important it is to develop the amenities of the quarters and stations at which the Air Forces are placed. During the War, inevitably—it was nobody's fault—they were almost squalid in their accommodation and in the consequent atmosphere. There were some excellent stations to which that observation does not in the least apply, but there were necessarily a good many which were in a very unsatisfactory state. My right hon. and gallant Friend, in his very interesting speech, said that the problem of demobilisation was a very trying one, and that the utmost sympathy ought to be felt for the officers whose services it was no longer possible to retain. That was a very just observation, and I earnestly hope that in making selection of officers to be retained—necessarily a very difficult task—the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary will ever keep before their minds the immense importance to the future of the Air Force of retaining as many as possible of the officers who have had actual and important combatant experience, flying over the lines in France and in the East.
There is inevitably a tendency in a public office to overlook the desirability of first establishing and afterwards maintaining a true tradition in a force like the Air Force. It is impossible to talk to any of the real combatant officers, fighting officers, bombing officers and the like, without being struck by the fact that there is growing
up a most interesting tradition, which might be lost, I suppose, if too many of them left the Service, and which is in many respects strikingly different from what it might be supposed to be by those who are not intimately acquainted with these officers. A very much severer standard—to name one point which has struck me—of personal courage is exacted by combatant officers of each other than anything which we who are outside would presume to exact. The language of eulogium which is often most deservedly uttered in this House with regard to the gallantry of pilots and observers is not uttered by themselves without great exception. They would tell you that there are many officers who fail in their duty, and it is exceedingly important in the Air Force that a distinction should be drawn between those who have done their duty and those who have not. It is, of course, well known among friends who fall into the one category and who fall into the other, but if all distinguished combatant officers are lost to the force there will not be that tradition for what counts in good service in war handed down to the future as I should like to see it handed down. It will not come to be understood, as I think it ought to come to be understood, that to fight with your patrol is a much finer thing than to fight alone, that to be responsible for working with others in the air and not to think only of your own selfish distinction, is one of the great qualities of an Air Force officer. I must not go into detail, because I know too little of these things to deal in detail without blundering. All I would venture to say is that unless you keep a large number of distinguished combatant officers in the force you will not make your true fighting tradition. You will not have something handed down from mouth to mouth so that young officers in the future may have something to attain and live up to.
I mainly wish to speak of the construction of the force and its expansion. The reason I am sorry that my right hon. Friend the Member for Dundee (Mr. Churchill) has taken the two offices does not spring from any distrust of himself. I do, indeed, trust him much more completely as the War Minister than I do as the Air Minister, because I think he shares an infirmity very common among Englishmen, of thinking that the Air Service is a very easy thing to understand, and that, therefore, he understands it. I have often, observed that all Englishmen think that
they understand theology and politics without study. I have recently come to add a third topic which every Englishman thinks that he understands without any study—I mean the Air Service—and I am afraid that I sometimes think that my right hon. Friend overrates his grasp and knowledge of the Air Service. That is to some extent a snare to a man of his extreme energy of mind and decision of will. But my main reason for distrusting the union in himself of the two offices is that it necessarily means that his War Office advisers will advise him about air matters, and I am convinced that eminent generals and eminent admirals are totally unfit to form an opinion or to express an opinion about anything that is at all intricate in the Air Service. It is difficult without discourtesy, in talking to them, to explain how utterly and distantly remote they are from any grasp of the subject which could be helpful. For anyone who has even the superficial knowledge of these matters that I possess to talk to eminent generals and admirals about the Air Service is like talking to a colour-blind person about pictures. It is not merely that they do not know, but that they are not really aware of the depth or, density of their ignorance. It is perhaps more the density than the depth. They are absolutely out of touch with the realities of the thing. It is merely that they do not know the technicalities or the details. It is much more that they are quite out of touch with the mind of the flying officer.
This brings me to the great and main reason above all others for having a distinct Air Service. An airman is quite as distinct from a soldier or a sailor as the soldier and sailor are distinct from one another. An airman in his way of thinking and expressing himself is quite as unlike a soldier or a sailor as they are unlike one another. Compare a flying officer with a military officer. The very essence of a military officer's life is to be a leader. It is the sense of leadership that really underlies all that elaborate structure of discipline which is sometimes admired and sometimes derided, but which on the whole is the main support of the efficiency of the Army. But an air officer is not a leader in the sense that a military officer is. I suppose that the young and imaginative flying officer, when he first enters the Service imagines himself alone in the air shooting down a number of Germans. The military
officer imagines himself leading his men over the trenches to victory. The contrast between those youthful imaginations really penetrates through and through the Air Service. The flying officer does work with others, and no doubt in the future will work much more with others than at the present time, but the working together more resembles a football team that the leadership of an officer in the Army. It is because you lack the great quality of leadership in the Air Service so far as the junior officers go that you have all these difficulties in respect to dicipline. Discipline in the Army is a natural thing felt to be necessary by everyone who considers the matter of leadership or who thinks of himself as being an officer at all. A young officer in the Army readily assimilates what he is taught about discipline because he feels the importance of it when he thinks of himself as leading and commanding other men. That does not apply to anything like the same extent to the air officer. He has indeed a certain number of mechanics under him—and his relations to them, I think, in some respects ought to be different from what it is—but his relation to them is not that of a man who leads in war but rather that of a man who superintends mechanics at their work. He does not require the qualities of leadership in respect to his men. Of course, it is quite true when you get to the ranks of flight commander and squadron commander that you do get an element of leadership, but it is very different from the leadership of an officer over his soldiers. That goes through and through the Service from the very beginning, and it colours the man's mind all his life. I go so far as to say that even the senior officers in the Flying Service, if they have not had, as most of them have had, very large experience in the War and service in flying, notwithstanding their immense knowledge, ability, and experience of the matter, nevertheless speak the language of the Air service, in what seems to some to be like a foreign tongue. I shall never think that the Air Force is in a completely healthy condition until, and this cannot be for many years, it is possible to put it entirely under the authority of those officers who themselves have had experience in this War in flying in the air and combatant flying service in the course of the War. It is not until you get that generation grown up and attaining to a sufficient age to enable them to be in full
command of the Air Force, that you will get it into a completely healthy condition.
That brings me to the next point. It is sometimes thought that you do good to the Air Force by importing senior officers from the Army to instruct them in discipline, and, of course, some of the officers other than those who have been regularly flying, are men of extreme ability, and have rendered extremely valuable service to the Air Force. Others may be described as disinterred examples of military eminence. But whatever their quality, some very bad, and some not so good, they must be regarded as a temporary expedient. It is quite true that flying officers commonly are very ill trained in administrative matters and by no means good Staff officers, and that without the assistance which the Army and the Navy has given, the Air Service would be very ill served in all the staff part of its work. Nevertheless, that must be a temporary expedient until you have trained up genuine flying officers and taught them staff work by proper training and education. Therefore, the great problem in the Air Service is the future training of the air officer. I do earnestly hope that every air officer in the future, whether administrative officer ultimately or flying officer, shall always begin by learning to fly. I am quite sure that that is essential for the efficiency of the Air Force. I hope also that as much as possible you will get people to learn to fly when very young. I should like to see people learn to fly under the security of dual control as young as sixteen, and that they should go in sole control as young as seventeen and a-half. I believe with proper precautions and careful training, and, as my hon. Friend opposite has just pointed out, with the increased security which inventions are constantly giving, and which further experience is giving to the arm of flying, that that would be quite safe. I believe that if people learned to fly as young as that they would be able to fly far beyond the age at which they at present fly, and, indeed, unless prevented by actual infirmity. I speak in the presence of those who know much more about the matter than I do, but it is ray strong conviction that if flying were learned young it would not be regarded as having much more difficulty than running up and down stairs. I imagine when stairs were first invented that there was all the alarm that
has now been excited by the more hazardous feats in aviation, and that it was only the young who lived on the first floor, and that anybody over forty lived on the ground floor. Possibly it was thought that it was all very well for young men to go upstairs, but that for elderly persons it was essential that they should live on the ground floor. Because we learned to go upstairs when young we do it with extraordinary precision and accuracy, and the other day I even ran down a moving staircase at Paddington with dexterity. I am sure if the air officer learned young that the great difficulty which stands in the way in the minds of so many people of a completely Independent Air Force, namely, that there is no future for middle-aged men, will disappear. I believe, even apart from the large administrative opportunities and scientific opportunities which are necessarily associated with flying, that you would in sheer flying be able to continue practically as late as the period of activity in human life extends in any profession, and that until they actually become infirm it would be possible for people to be able to fly.
Therefore, I earnestly plead for a scheme of training by which officers shall be trained, as they are in the Army and Navy, for the Air Force. They should be brought up to be airmen, and made in every possible way to feel a pride and pleasure in their Service, and regard for its honour and glory, At present there is no doubt that the Air Force is divided by a great schism. The officers who can fly regard, sometimes with patience and sometimes with impatience, but always with contempt, officers who cannot fly. Nothing can exceed the unsatisfactory nature of the relations of those who are in charge of administration, and to whom it is necessary for the flying officer to go at every turn, but who nevertheless do not enjoy in the least degree the confidence and respect of the great body of flying officers. Constantly the administration of the Air Force and the Air Ministry falls, very often quite undeservedly, into discredit because the persons in charge of it are supposed to know nothing whatever about the subject of flying or the requirements of aeroplanes and the like. The air officer who flies has no confidence whatever in the judgment of those who cannot fly to decide administrative questions. That weakens the authority of the administration and
discipline in the Air Force, and it produces a great deal of discontent and friction. Therefore what you want to do is to bring it to an end by making everybody of one type, the airman type. You want to recognise quite frankly that soldier, sailor, and airman are three different types, and that the Air Force is independent not merely by Act of Parliament, but by something which is more fundamental than an Act of Parliament—by the laws of human nature. You have a different Service, different because the mental atmosphere and interests are made different by the profession. Just as you never would, whatever the motives of administration or organisation, hand over the Navy to the War Office, so neither must you ever dream of handing over the Air Force to the War Office, because the War Office is just as incompetent in that case as it would be admitted to be in the other.
We cannot completely deal with the problems of the future now, because we do not yet know what is to be the size of the Air Force in time of peace, and all other conditions of organisation depend on that fundamental element. But this, indeed, we may say, that the probabilities are that the Air Force will maintain its claim upon the country for support and organisation as long as either the Navy or the Army is a combatant force. Of course, we all hope that all combatant forces will gradually sink and become less and less, until they become altogether superfluous. But, as long as they last, the Air Force will be one of them. We must, therefore, make the Air Force as efficient as it could be made in time of war. We can make it efficient most of all by cherishing the spirit of the flying officer. My hon. and gallant Friend who spoke from the Front Bench spoke very interestingly, I thought, of the importance of encouraging observers. I imagine what he said was entirely true, but I am sure it would be a mistake if, in the desire to encourage observers, we did not maintain what has been the practice of the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Air Force, the ascendancy—the substantial ascendancy—of the pilot in the running of the Force; because the pilot is naturally the sportsman of the Force, and unless you maintain the sporting spirit you will not maintain the element which. I think we may say without national vanity, has given us the finest Air Force in the world. It was
because the pilot was in command that our Air Force was, I think, more enterprising, by all the accounts I have received, than the forces either of our enemies or of our Allies. Do not let us lose that great tradition or the source of it. The source of it is in making the sporting spirit of the Air Force the governing tradition, the governing motive, which shall run through the whole force from top to bottom, and in order to do that you must exalt the position of the pilot not, of course, to the exclusion of the recognition of technical officers, but because it is in the gallantry of that sporting spirit which has distinguished the flying officers in this War that we have found the victory which has come to our arms. It is in the hope that our posterity may, if they ever have laid upon them the tremendous burden which we have borne so manfully, and in order that they may have the great assistance of the tradition and spirit of sporting courage anxious to meet with enterprise all opportunities of war that we will hand down to them a force unspoiled and with undiminished vigour, so that they, too, may in the end thank Heaven for victory and look forward as we do in hope to a lasting peace.

Mr. RAPER: In rising to make my maiden flight in the House as a new Member, I crave its indulgence. I wish to take part in the discussion on the Estimate before the House, not with any desire to obstruct or attack the Government but with the hope and idea of assisting, if I can, in the control and development of aviation, as I believe it to be the duty of anyone who has practical knowledge of this subject, and as a pilot I have some, to contribute his widow's mite of information to the general store. The full importance of the Vote before the House is not, I think, generally recognised by the public. Too many people are apt to look upon aviation, and especially civilian aviation, as a new toy for the Government to play with. The part, however, which flying, both civilian and military, is capable of playing in the future destinies of this country is so vast that the greatest care must be taken to avoid any possibility of mismanagement or mistakes at the outset. If the Government proposes to control not only military but civilian flying, every precaution must be taken to protect the latter from official lethargy, as well as from an excess of official zeal. Commerce has never thriven in fetters of red tape, and it is essential
that commercial aviation should not be tied too tightly to the apron strings of Whitehall.
With regard to the control of the Air Services during the War, it is common knowledge that the management of the different Departments left much to be desired, and that millions of pounds were thrown away. On the other hand, nobody who gives a little consideration to the matter can but marvel at the wonderfully effective fighting force which was so quickly created. Even if a number of men were appointed to senior positions for which they had no qualifications, and even if some millions of pounds were thrown away, the main point is that the building up of the British and Colonial Air Forces was a most wonderful achievement, and that our Air Service played one of the most important parts in forcing the enemy to seek an Armistice. Now, however, that the War is won, provided we keep our heads and we have time to look round, there can be no excuse for further mistakes. As a business man I consider it is our immediate duty to put the Air Force on a proper business basis and take care that it is treated in a way that its future position as a fighting force demands. It would be a grave mistake to stint a single penny that can be usefully employed in enabling this country to continue to hold its position in leading the world in aviation, both military and civil, but it is equally essential that we should receive full value for our money. There are certain points to which I propose to refer, points which would appear to a certain number of hon. Members to recall unpleasant memories. I only propose to revise them with a view to suggesting most respectfully to my right hon. and gallant Friend that these were mistakes which the stress of war might condone, but which, under the conditions of peace, which we hope may soon be reached, would be inexcusable and be bound to militate against the interests of the future of aviation.
Dealing first with the financial aspect of the Air Estimates, I should like to have from my right hon. and gallant Friend full particulars of the data on which the Estimates are based. These Estimates have the appearance of having been compiled by Civil servants who, however great their experience in Government Departments, cannot have experience of commercial methods and
accounting such as to justify their drawing up Estimates so complex and presenting such new problems as those we are discussing to-day. I should like to have an assurance from my right hon. and gallant Friend that in drawing up these Estimates he has had the aid, not only of men versed in the science of flying, but also of men thoroughly acquainted with the intricacies of its pounds, shillings, and pence.
I further ask my right hon. and gallant Friend if he will acquaint the House with the exact reasons given by a well-known public auditor for resigning at the end of last year from his position as voluntary auditor of aerodrome accounts? It is very disquieting that this gentleman's place should have been filled by a Civil servant, who, however capable in other capacities, could not have the same knowledge of commercial accountancy and the experience necessary for dealing with prime cost contracts, and who would not be able to look at them from the same determined standpoint of criticism. The tendency should be to draft a strong commercial strain on to the Civil Service tree in the case of new Departments of such momentous importance and wide scope. The mistakes made excusably during the War should be turned to account as warning posts for the future, and it is well that one or two examples should be pointed out. It is remarkable to me, as a business man, that adequate accounting arrangements were not made when aerodrome building contracts commenced. The system followed made it very difficult, if not impossible, to draw up a correct account of the exact amount of money expended on the construction of each individual aerodrome. Extravagance by this system, or lack of it, might very easily be concealed, although I do not for one moment suggest that this was the reason for its adoption. I certainly do suggest most respectfully that it was probably and possibly due to this most peculiar manner of bookkeeping that a very long time appeared to elapse before the authorities began to appreciate the enormous sums of money which were being thrown into the Loch Do on quagmire. Because of this peculiar system of bookkeeping the cost of other aerodromes must be a matter of guesswork. When it is borne in mind that there were no less than 300 contracts made for the construction of aerodromes.
ranging from £100,000 to £1,500,000, the serious need for expert commercial accountancy is amply demonstrated.
Take the system of contracting for construction work on a cost, plus profit basis. Unless controlled and carefully controlled by suitably qualified accountants with large commercial experience, such a system cannot but leave a very wide door open to corruption. I should be interested to learn why the system which was adopted of allowing the contractors a certain profit on materials supplied to them by the Government was made retrospective? Did not the Air Ministry think that these contractors had already made sufficient money out of the country for all the work they had undertaken? Another question I should like to ask my right hon. and gallant Friend is how much has been written off as a charge against the public for stores deficiencies of squadrons stationed in Great Britain since the War began, and what percentage of this amount has been recovered from the officers responsible for such deficiencies? The whole system of provision during the War was most unbusiness like, and I contend strongly that the position of Director of Air Equipment is a post to which an officer of good business experience should be appointed, and not a Service man who, however fine an officer, possesses no commercial experience. It is my opinion that real and lasting efficiency in the Air Force can only be secured by inspiring general confidence in the administration and a friendly rivalry between all the different units. I should like, too, to receive an assurance from my right hon. and gallant Friend that the break clause has been imposed in the case of all contracts which were in force when the Armistice was signed for the supply of aeroplanes, engines, and spare parts, and that in no case has the imposition of this break clause been subsequently varied. If this break clause has not been thoroughly applied in the case of any contract, we Air Service members would be most interested to have particulars of those contracts and to know whether there were any exceptions made and, where that has been done, the reasons for their special treatment. Although the right hon. and gallant Gentleman referred to this matter in his speech and said it was a matter which, to an extent, was controlled by the Ministry of Munitions, at the same time is it not a case
where to a great extent it must depend upon the willingness of the Air Ministry to take delivery?
A post has been created called the Director of Production and Research, and an officer has been given this appointment who joined the Royal Air Force in April, 1917. Is this officer under General Sykes or General Trenchard, and what exactly are his duties? Where has he had the business training which is necessary in the case of an officer who controls production, or the scientific training which is necessary in the case of an officer responsible for research? With regard to the proposed Air Service to Karachi, through Egypt, and to other far-away spots, although the idea of these schemes is most praiseworthy, I do sincerely hope that a reliable calculation has been made of the total cost to the country, and that my right hon. and gallant Friend is satisfied that the result will be worth the expenditure and that proper and full accounts will be kept. Nobody could be more anxious than we Air Service members are that our Air Service should continue to occupy the leading position in the world, but it is because I appreciate that this cannot be accomplished by either faulty administration or prodigal expenditure that I have ventured to draw attention to these various points. I specially desire to urge upon my right hon. and gallant Friend to appoint a small but permanent Committee, composed of two or three hon. Members of this House and two or three gentlemen outside the House who have a knowledge of commercial organisation, to assist the Air Ministry authorities in drawing up their Estimates, and to assist them also in finance and business matters generally.
If the Committee will grant me its indulgence for a few more minutes, I would like to make a few remarks regarding the opinion of Air Service Members relative to the development of civilian aviation. The air, despite the great developments we have witnessed during the past few years, is still such an unexplored and uncharted region that those of us who have been initiated into its possibilities feel that every chance should be given to the Air Services, both military and civil, of the future. This, I consider, is not likely to be the case while flying is subordinated to another and quite terrestial department like the War Office, even under a celestially-minded chief like the present Secre-
tary of State for War, who has done so much to encourage and foster aviation. While far from being a visionary, I, like most other men who have flown, have caught a glimpse of the boundless future prospects of aviation, and feel that these prospects would be severely curtailed if flying is to be treated merely as an adjunct to the War Office The point which has to be kept steadily in mind is that the Air Ministry may not in the future be primarily a weapon of war, and its aims will become increasingly divergent from those of the War Office. The main development of flying is likely to be in the commercial direction, and I do not think anybody can pretend that it would be a desirable state of affairs for any phase of the commerce of this country to be under War Office control. It is entitled to distinct and separate control and administration. My view is that it is as unfair to the War Office as to the Air Service to couple these two Departments together. The War Office has its own great tasks to perform, its own difficulties to contend with. We have to ask whether it is right and fitting that this new immense problem should be added to its other burdens. The demobilisation of the old and creation of the New Armies, the entire recasting of the military horizon, and the preparation of plans to meet a hundred possible future contingencies will keep the War Office more than fully occupied for the next few years. These years would be the very ones when it is imperative that full and undivided attention should be given to the Air Service. If devolution of administration is found to be necessary in respect of pensions, which are controlled by a separate Ministry, how much more must this be the case with a Department which has to deal with such enormously different subjects and with such great problems as those of the air traffic?
One of the arguments used in defending the present scheme is that the Air Service is simply one branch of the Army, just as Cavalry and Artillery are others. Leaving civilian flying on one side for the moment, that, surely, is taking a very circumscribed view of the potentialities of aviation. Far from being a mere branch under the larger organisation, it may, and I think will happen that the Air Service will in the future provide the major portion of the defensive and offensive organisations of this country. I look forward to a time when the Air Ministry,
besides having its own financial, commercial, technical, meteorological, and other Departments, will have its own separate War Department which will, however, form only one phase of its far-reaching activities. The potentialities of the Air Force as a destructive agent have been thoroughly demonstrated, but I think my right hon. Friend will agree that much remains to be done before its full scope in the constructive field has been investigated. The question which we ask is whether this constructive flying is likely to be adequately developed under the ægis of what is essentially a destructive department. In the considerations I have ventured to submit, I have been prompted solely by a sincere desire to seek out the best way to further aviation in this country, believing, as I do, that this young science is destined to play a most distinguished part, not only in war, but in commerce, travel, and civilisation.

Lieutenant-Colonel MOORE-BRABAZON: With the enormous Estimates that have been put before this House during the last week, I hope that the growing spirit of economy will not culminate against the newest. Service of all; and it is on the matter of economy that I want to raise my voice from the point of view of organisation. The first matter is with regard to the operations side of the Air Force. That is a thing which has changed from day to day from the beginning of the War. We have seen that the Royal Flying Corps started off to do nothing but reconnaissance, and ended up by taking a very large part in offensive operations. The same thing happened in the Navy. From doing nothing but scouting, it has changed to offensive operations against submarines. I want to get an answer from the right hon. Gentleman as to the probability of establishing, now, an Air Staff, so as to train people to deal with this new weapon in the most efficient way possible. I have seen the use of aircraft right through the War, and I know the way it was done really. Anything new done by the Royal Flying Corps was always very wonderful, and if you did not do quite what was expected of you, you turned round and blamed the Air Ministry. There is an enormous future, but it must be studied out, and the only place to study it out is in an efficient Air Service Staff College. Might I ask the right hon. Gentleman if he can let us know, now, what
policy he is about to adopt with regard to the importation into the Royal Air Force of Regular officers from other Services? I should like to know where we stand with regard to that. We have found ourselves saddled with Staff officers, and with all sorts of Regular officers, who knew nothing about the subject at all, and who arrived at a minute's notice. I should like to get, straight away, to-night, a guarantee from the right hon. Gentleman that this will not occur again; and that, if you belong to one Service, you do belong to that one Service; that you cannot be amphibious, and change about every half-hour. There is, I believe, a proposition that officers should be seconded from one Service, or from the Army to the Air Service, for a period of years, as was done in the Royal Flying Corps before the War. I think the Secretary of State for War has it at the bottom of his mind that in that way they can get a knowledge of all the Services which will lead up to that dream of his, which is, I believe, an Imperial War Staff. Now, if we can second officers of the Army and Navy to the Air Force, will be give us an assurance that we can also second Air Force officers to the Army and Navy. Otherwise, we shall soon see that when this big Imperial Staff College arrives the people who will be on top in it will be sailors and soldiers, and not airmen. We have suffered in the Air Force from Staff officers of the Regular Army who have no technical knowledge at all. I do want to impress the Committee with the fact that the Air Force is the most technical Force that can possibly be imagined. You meet technicalities the whole way through, and in order that officers can understand the way to use the power that is in their hands they must know the technical part of aviation. I remember very well a Staff officer, on what they call the "G" side, jumping on me because I was doing a matter of training which involved some certain mathematics—trigonometry and the calculus. He took it from me; you know how particular soldiers are in never allowing others to do their work. I handed the thing over to him—he had something to do with training—and after ten minutes he came back to me, and said, "What is 'perpendicular," is it up and down, or is it sideways?" With a technical Corps like the Royal Air Force you cannot carry on with that type of mind.
May I raise a point with regard to the pay of flying officers. I should very much like to be told, and for the Committee to-know, what are the percentages of fatal accidents which arise, first of all, from the enemy, and secondly, through training. I think, if the figures were put before the Committee, it would amaze them to know what enormous casualties have taken place, not from the enemy, but through quick training and, perhaps, careless landing after a flight over the lines. I want to impress upon the Committee that this is a dangerous calling. If you are in the Army or the Navy during peace time you may get run over by a, motor lorry, or get your feet wet, but you are not going to be killed. If, in the Air Service, you make one error of judgment landing, you may be killed. I think, from the point of view of remuneration during peace time, that that consideration must be borne in mind, and that liberal pay for flying officers must be provided. Now with regard to men. I listened with very great interest yesterday to a speech by the right hon. Member for Abertillery (Mr. Brace) with regard to the Navy, and to the organisation within the Navy, so as to enable the men to bring any grievances to the notice of their commanding officers. The right hon. Gentleman also raised the question of a true democracy in our Services, so that you could, providing you had any ability, rise from the bottom to the top. I do hope the same idea is going to be embodied in the new organisation of the Royal Air Force, so that anyone who has any ability can rise really to the top, because I have heard rumours that the new Air Force is going to be a crack corps Do let it be a crack corps of efficiency and not a crack corps of social snobbery. Can we be assured that the men who really are not soldiers, but tradesmen dressed up—you have to remember that that is the difference between the airman and the soldier. One is, first of all, a soldier, and the other is a tradesman really, taken away to do his job—will the right hon. Gentleman say that these men are going to get the pay they would have got in ordinary commercial life, if, instead of working at their specialised jobs for the Air Force, they were doing it in civil life? The thing has got to be levelled up, so that there will be no great disadvantage in serving a Service rather than a private firm.
I am afraid I have imposed myself too much on the Committee in a very short
time in regard to the question of aviation and on the military side. Now I am going to stop, because I think, with the appointment of General Trenchard, that we ought to give him a fair chance to get ahead and see if he can organise something out of what is left over after the War. I know he has been very ill, and I, and I am certain the whole Committee also, hope that he will soon be able to get back to work. But he is the type of man who will get back to work too soon, unless he is ordered about by the right hon. Gentleman; he will come back too soon, unless you look after hm. I hope that criticisms against the Royal Air Force will be almost entirely postponed until he has had a chance of getting the thing going. Now just a word on the technical side. Of course, I am keener on the technical side than on anything else, because I have always considered it the very heart of aviation. We must remember that a war now is not brawn against brawn, but absolutely brain against brain, and the only way we kept ahead in this War was because we were relying on the civil side that was making our machines. A very eminent admiral, in a speech here yesterday, said that if we looked after the men the material would look after itself. I think that that is a most fallacious statement. We saw it in the Air Force, where the very best men, mounted on bad machines, were brought down time and again. It is up to the House, and to the civil side of the Air Ministry, to see that the best people in our wonderful corps are mounted on the very best machines.
The liaison between the man who is going to design the machine and the person who is going to use it in war, I think, presents a little difficulty, and I should like to have the scheme disclosed to me to-night. During the War most of the active service people got on one side of the Channel, and there they stuck, while the Air Ministry got into a groove on this side. There was no liaison between the two; indeed, at one time during the War, there was the bitterest feeling between those in France and the Air Ministry, and it was only during the last year that there was that wonderful interchange of officers and of ideas that really made us go right ahead. Can we be assured that actual pilots in squadrons will be able to be interchangeable on the technical side? The technical side will provide to the Air Force not what the technical side think it wants, but what the Air Force actually wants. A word as to factories. The Royal Air-
craft Factory is one of the most abused institutions that exists in England to-day. I should hate to see it disappear, because, although during the War civil firms have produced aeroplanes that have beaten the Aircraft Factory, yet you roust have in England a centre where you can see that your civilian firms are up-to-date and. where you can possibly beat them. Without an organisation like the Royal Aircraft Factory you may get yourself in just such a fix as happened in France.
7.0 P.M.
I have listened to the Estimates for the three Services, and not one single word of thanks have I heard from any right hon. Gentleman for what has been done during the War by all the women in the organisations connected with the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force. I speak with regard to the Air Force, because I know that for every man you send up in the air you want more people on the ground to look after him than is the case in any other Service. It would be advisable to keep them on, and I should like to be informed whether the Women's Royal Air Force will continue after the War, and, if so, will you give them some more amusing part of life than they have had hitherto and not let the women get all the dull things while we get all the glory. Will they be allowed to fly?
I should like to say one word as to the future of aviation in general. Neither your Army nor your Navy nor the Air Service was able to come to a decision in this War. All three Services adopted defensive measures while the great inertia of the commercial possibilities of the country were developing, and when that was really organised and going forward nothing could stop us. If that is so, you only have to knock out the civil engineering part of the country and you could never win any war. I do not think hon. Members have realised quite enough what bombing is going to come to in the future. The ordinary bomb of to-day is as the bow and arrow to the howitzer compared with the bomb of ten years hence, and we have seen even during this War that it is possible to sail your aeroplane to a definite point by directional wireless in a fog, and when you got to that point there is no defence against night bombing by directional wireless. That is a very serious thing. In the future it seems to me the only way of dealing with the situation is to have in your hands the possibility of
hitting back a good deal more than you can be hit, and for that mason I hope the House will pass these first Estimates.

Sir D. MACLEAN: I should like to make one or two comments on the financial situation to the seriousness of which the Vote adds. Taking the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force together, for the present year there is no less a sum than £650,000,000 to be voted. That is only £1,000,000 short of the total of our National Debt when the War began. We all appreciate the great seriousness of that, and I had thought to endeavour to obtain more details of the policy and of the expenditure which were proposed, but one is always met, quite properly, with the statement, We cannot tell what we may require until peace comes. I know the Leader of the House is as deeply concerned about the finance of the country as any hon. Member of the House or any man out of it. Very few people equal him in his knowledge of file gravity of the problem or in his seriousness in attempting to grapple with it. I really think the illustration which was given to us by the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Colonel Moore-Brabazon) in regard to the confession in the military mind as to what is the meaning of the word "perpendicular" applies to this, and really the word "economy" has lost any meaning For us. We do not know where we stand or what lies before us. I should like to make what I think is a practical suggestion. We all hope, with a certain amount of confidence, that by July, or perhaps June, peace will have been signed. Difficult as the outlook is before the world now, at any rate we may hope something will be a little more clear then than it. is at present. These Votes in effect really are nothing more than Token Votes. We do not know neither does the Government what expenditure will really be required. I suggest that when the time comes, say in June or July, we might have an opportunity of reviewing these Estimates, because then we should have some idea of the position which lies before us. Happily I have been able to look up a precedent in Erskine May, a volume which I might commend to the perusal of the large body of enthusiastic new Members. It is a volume which, owing to the industry and ability of the clerk assistant at the Table, to whom we owe a very great debt for his industry and zeal in this respect, practically covers almost any Parlia-
mentary situation with which we may be faced. On page 452 we find a statement which I think affords a foundation for my suggestion.
When, owing to the course of events, Grants voted on Account, as in the case of the Army and Navy Departments, exceeded the requirements of the current financial year, statements were presented by command shoving the amount of the original scale of expenditure, together with reduced Estimates for the sums ultimately found to be sufficient, which were referred to the Committee of Supply. In one case a Grant made on Account was in excess of the total amount required. The due amount was accordingly voted de novo in Committee and the previous Resolution was rescinded before the new Resolution was agreed to by the House.
That would give to the House of Commons in Committee an opportunity, which I am sure the Government and the public would welcome, of reviewing these Estimates, which are at present cast in the dark, in the comparative light of peace, and of what may be the requirements of the nation for its Civil Service, for the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force.
In addition to that, I find there are two precedents almost on all-fours. They are so good, speaking as a lawyer, that one begins to doubt them. But here they are. After the close of the Peninsular War this process was gone through, and the Votes which were taken during the year before the War ended came again in Committee of Supply, and were reduced in accordance with the prospects then before the country and the obviously much reduced needs of the Army in that case. The same thing happened after the Crimean War. Peace was declared in April, 1856, and on 1st May, within two or three weeks of the conclusion of peace, the Government said, "This money has been granted to us for the financial year. We find we do not require so much. We put the thing back before you in Committee again. Give us the reduced sum which you, with us, think necessary for the needs of the nation." In all fairness I should add that after the conclusion of the Peninsular War there followed immediately the hundred days, and in the case of the Crimea we had in the following year the Indian Mutiny. Absit omen in each separate instance. Still there we have a practicable suggestion founded upon precedents, and I suggest that is an example which we might well follow, and I am certain it would have a very good effect on us. The Government is asking for these sums not to aggrandise the spending Departments
for the mere sake of getting them, but they are doing it under a serious sense of responsibility. I am quite sure it would help us in the House of Commons and it would give the country confidence if we knew that when the time arrives for the conclusion of peace the House will have another opportunity of exercising its ancient, but none the less modern, privilege and very useful right of checking expenditure and shaping our course in the spending of money according to the approved policy and the interest of the country.

Mr. BONAR LAW (Leader of the House): I need not say I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend that the present method in the present circumstances must be, if not unsatisfactory, at least disquieting to every Member of the House of Commons. Of course we have had the feeling, and I gave expression to this while still Chancellor of the Exchequer, that the system of Votes of Credit, by which all this expenditure is paid for out of one Vote, was a very bad system even under the suspension of hostilities, not to speak of after the conclusion of peace. I, therefore, gave a promise that so far as possible the system of ordinary Estimates would be adopted this year. But the right hon. Gentleman is quite right. Though we have a nominal system of Estimates, in effect they are really Token Votes, and what the House is doing is granting a sum of money which cannot be particularised, but which must largely be guessed either by the Government or by the House. Obviously that is very unsatisfactory, and I have not the slightest doubt that as soon as peace comes, as soon as we know where we are in that respect, it will be the obvious duty of the House of Commons to have some complete discussion on the question of policy as to our armed forces. There must be some complete discussion as to what we mean to do with our armed forces in peace time in contradistinction to what we have been doing during the War. That is absolutely inevitable. As regards the particular suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman, I have not given consideration to that. I have thought it quite possible that new Estimates should be presented when we know exactly where we are, but I am sure neither he nor the House will expect me to give any promise in that respect. But his suggestion will be considered, and in one way or another some opportunity must be given
to the House of Commons of considering, as a whole, the total of our expenditure for the armed forces after peace.

Mr. PERRING: I do not propose to deal with these Estimates as an expert or in regard to technicalities. I am more particularly concerned with the relationship which these Estimates bear to the needs of our defensive forces, and to our financial and economic situation. I have no desire to travel over the ground covered by the right hon. Gentleman (Sir D. Maclean), but it seems to me that, having regard to the long period of war which we have passed through, and the large number of hon. Members who have passed from the various Services connected with the Naval and Military Forces, there is atendency, and I believe there will be, a. tendency, to look up all those Estimates for military purposes through military spectacles. A remark that escaped the right hon. Gentleman (General Seely) who introduced these Estimates, that it was a difficult thing to demobilise, suggests to me that that difficulty is accentuated by the fact that we have developed the military spirit in this country in an endeavour to kill the military spirit. Speaking as a man associated with commerce, I cannot approach the question from the same point of view as the hon. Member who spoke a few minutes ago. The Estimates are framed according to some hon Members as though we were at war, while other hon. Members speak as though we were approaching peace. I submit that as a straw shows the way the wind blows so should the Armistice terms, and the prospective Peace terms give us some indication of what are our requirements in regard to the defensive forces.
If we look at the proposed Armistice terms, together with the Peace terms, we see that the German Army is to be stripped of aeroplanes, more or less, and will be practically helpless in a few months' time, while we, as a Great Power, are to-day stronger than we were when the Armistice took place on the 11th November. We have been told to-day of the large expenditure which has taken place between 11th November and the close of this financial year. In view of that fact, and in view of the large expenditure which the Government have been compelled to pass, having regard to the large contracts which existed on the Armistice day, I suggest that our Air Force will be so overwhelmingly strong, and our Allies will be
so overwhelmingly strong, that there is not the same necessity in the ensuing financial year for this great expenditure. Reference has been made to the large Estimates for the Army, the Navy, and now the Air Force. I calculate that the sum asked for, at a time when we are approaching peace, and when our enemy is supposed to be prostrate, represents something like £50 per head for every family in the country. We have been told that the War is not over, and that we must be prepared and be cautious in what we are doing. I submit that such a suggestion is a very serious reflection upon the military advisers of the Crown in regard to the Armistice and the Peace terms, because if the Armistice terms permit of the enemy again resuming hostilities, or of having any prospect of resuming hostilities, it will be a very serious reflection upon them, and this House would have good cause to complain. I am content to believe that the military advisers of the Allied Powers have made such terms that there is no possibility of the resumption of hostilities, and that, having regard to the fact that we are overwhelmingly strong and the enemy is extremely weak, we need not speak in this House as though we were in the midst of war.
I should like to emphasise the point that has been made as to the efficiency of the Air Force. Would a force such as we have to-day, efficient both as regards machines and pilots, and with each machine worth three or four old machines, and having regard to the power of the efficient machines and of the efficient pilots, a smaller force can accomplish what a much larger force was able to do in times gone by? That being so, with the highly efficient force we have today and the enormous number of pilots we have in the country I suggest that it is a mistake to go on training pilots, seeing that we shall have no use for them, for in the near future we may reasonably expect such a peace as will not necessitate the use of these aeroplanes. We are budgeting to-day for the requirements of the next financial year, and only for the next financial year, but some hon. Members talk of bombing and the technique of aviation as if we contemplated in the very near future going into another war. They speak in the military spirit. They are breathing the atmosphere of militarism and looking through military spectacles. I am surprised that the busi-
ness men in the House—we were given, to understand at the last election that we were to have a business Parliament and business methods—do not make themselves heard more. When we have had discussions on these three-Service Estimates I have hardly heard a single great industrial magnate getting up to combat the military spirit which is getting hold of this House. I think it is deplorable, because if we are talking of reconstruction, and talking, as we do from day to day, of production, as the only means of providing revenue for this semi-war expenditure, we must remember that we cannot have that revenue if we are going to keep more men in the military forces than are necessary for the defence of the country. It will be far better for the Government, knowing that peace must come soon—and if they do not know it is a serious reflection upon their military advisers—to spend a certain portion of this money in developing commercial aviation and other sources of commercial development than to pursue a policy which indirectly restricts the trade of this country. Expenditure which, assuming that there are twelve or thirteen million heads of families in this country represents £50 per head, means a serious tax on industrial development. It is because of that economic fact that I have risen to speak amongst the experts who are more concerned with the development of aviation, the development of our military glory and the technique of the respective forces than they are to consider the matter in its relationship to our economic position and to the development of a reconstruction policy.
I notice that the number of officers and men provided for in this Estimate is 150,000, which is to be reduced gradually to 79,000. Of that 79,000 some 20,000 are for foreign service in the various theatres of war, and 59,000 are for Home and Colonial establishments, including Russia and the Grand Fleet. We have been told that we are not contemplating anything of great magnitude in Russia in regard to military operations. Therefore when we are budgeting for 59,000 men after demobilisation it seems to me an enormous force, having regard to the future needs of our defences in regard to the air. If you make a rough calculation of 150,000 men, to be demobilised to 79,000 men, you can take an average over the whole financial year of 100,000, which works out at £600 per man and woman per annum,
which, having regard to the large number who are engaged as clerks and junior officials, seems to average a very big figure, for this 100,000 force—assuming that the 100,000 force is required. I suggest that this expenditure represents something more than appears on the paper.
Reference was made this afternoon by the Under-Secretry (General Seely) to two figures. One figure which was being spent in the present financial year was thirty odd millions, and another figure was twenty-six millions, which was going to be spent in the coming financial year in regard to contracts. I asked the question, how much of that money was being spent in compensation for contracts cancelled or going to be cancelled, and how much of that money is to be spent for goods delivered? I think that is a very important point. We ought to know in some way or another how much money is being spent in compensating people for losson contracts, so that we should have some idea whether the Government are—I do not say they are, but we do not know, and cannot know until we are told—cancelling contracts and will have to enter into fresh contracts in the next financial year for more aeroplanes. In view of the figures before us I think we ought to ask for more information because we are asked to sanction to-day forty million pounds, which is practically two-thirds of the total sum, without having any information. It has been said that while we are voting this money it may not be spent in regard to the Army and Navy, but a considerable sum may be saved, but that cannot be said about aviation. I think it is desirable that everything should be done to develop aviation, and that everything should be done to meet the needs of the defences of the country, but I do suggest that if we encourage commercial aviation it would be the best thing. We are told that large machines are being built for military purposes so that they can be adapted for commercial purposes. If we develop commercial aviation and we have a claim or a lien on these military machines for commercial purposes, it would be a far more honourable method of killing two birds with one stone than building up huge Government establishments which, in the opinion of most people, commercial people particularly, is always more costly because of the enormous staffs who are
engaged in Government establishments, as against the possibility of buying through private firms or subsidising commercial development, and having a claim on the machines if circumstances require them. Something in that direction would be more economical, and, as I have said, would kill two birds with one stone. I may express the hope that before this Vote is taken we shall, at any rate, have a little more information than we have had.

Mr. STURROCK: I am very glad that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Peebles (Sir D. Maclean) has brought us back to the question of expenditure, which is one of the main considerations which we ought to have before us in this Committee. While I am sure the Committee would gladly grant every penny that is required on this or any future occasion for the purpose of securing the place which we already occupy in the development of aviation, yet there is a widespread feeling against what is known in many parts of the country to be wasteful expenditure of public money. In Scotland we are well aware of the extraordinary case of what occurred at Loch Doon. The Select Committee which reported upon that matter said that Loch Doon would be remembered as the scene of one of the most direct instances of wasted expenditure that the records of the country could show, and I ask my right hon. Friend to believe me when I say that there is a very prevalent impression on the East Coast of Scotland that one Loch Doon has not been enough, and that in the case of Edzell there has been a wilful waste of public money which has staggered, I was going to say, the most conservative-minded men. I do not wish to be misinterpreted in a political sense, but it is an expense which has staggered all those who are least liable to be disturbed by what we see going on around us in the matter of disposing of other people's money.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Dundee knows that we are supposed to be a thrifty people in Scotland, and we do trust that whatever is done as regards the future of flying, the right hon. Gentleman and those whom he controls will take steps to ensure that extravagant expenditure is put an end to without further loss of time. This matter is not merely the subject of irresponsible talk in the county, but actually the local authorities have had a conference on their own account
to go into the whole question, for the wages paid at the Edzell Aerodrome, the methods of conducting the work, and the whole of the transactions connected with that enterprise, have been such as to demoralise the labour market over the whole county and to create a topic of conversation and derision among all classes of people. The local authorities take a strong position on the matter, claiming that until the Government takes effective measures to put an end to the scandalous state of things which goes on, there will never be in that part of the country, at any rate, any confidence in the business methods of the Government.
A matter of £200 in reference to the Vote which we are passing to-day seems, I know, a trifle. But I do ask my right hon. Friend to note one point in reference to the disposal of huts and other stores at the aerodrome in that part of the country. I read the other day that a county councillor in Forfar, a man locally well known and respected, stated that he had official information that Government stores to the value of £200 had been wastefully burned, although those stores which took the shape of huts, canvas, and other material were valuable, and could have been sold to advantage in the markets in the neighbourhood. The canvas alone, if my information is correct, being badly wanted by local farmers for stack covers. We have a right in this Committee when called on to vote vast sums of public money to urge upon right hon. Gentlemen on the Treasury Bench the extreme need of seeing to it that there is no wilful waste, such as undoubtedly—I say without fear of contradiction—lias been going on up there. So far as the development of civil aviation is concerned, use should be made of the stations which have already been erected, and the Government should see to it, as I think my right hon. Friend has already indicated it would, that every facility is given at existing military stations for the development of civilian flying. I should have wished to say something to my right hon. Friend in reference to the future of the aerodrome at Montrose, which is, though it may be presumptuous on my part as representing that burgh to say so, one of the best equipped in the country. But I am quite satisfied that since my right hon. Friend has promised to fly to Montrose at an early date to see what can be done
with that station, that it will be satisfactory to leave that point for future arrangements.

Mr. BARTLEY DENNISS: For the next few years I suppose Members of the House will be apprehensive concerning the question of economy, and I would like to refer to the speech of my hon. Friend Mr. Perring, and his criticism of what he thought was the extravagance of the present Estimate. But it is impossible for any of us to criticise these Estimates because there are no details. I could a tale unfold about the aerodrome that would exceed in horror all that has been said this evening by several hon. Members—the aerodrome at Uxbridge, where I live, and the conversion of Oldham Mills into aeroplane factories. On one occasion a deputation of Lancashire builders waited on Lord Rothermere about the cost and he said that he was perfectly helpless in the matter, that there was no method of payment for these aerodromes except a percentage on cost of material, labour, and establishment expenses—the most ruinous kind of contract that either a private individual or a Government could go into. But it is quite useless now to talk about these things because it is all spilt milk and cannot be gathered up again. What we have got to see to is that in the future the Air Ministry and the War Office proceed as far as possible upon normal lines with regard to contracts and general expenditure.
We cannot even say that the Estimates are very extravagant either in men or in money required for the Air Force, because we are in a transition period and we must prepare for what may eventuate into a serious war again. I remember quite well reading when I was a young man how in the throes of the French Revolution when the French people were perhaps very much in the same position that the German people are in at the present time, when the foreign invader put his foot upon France, that pulled the French people together, and the result was that Napoleon sprang up and defeated the whole of Europe. The thing that might possibly happen even now in Germany. Were our terms so severe as to arouse the indignation of the German people, they might join the Russian Bolshevists, who seem to be getting the upper hand in that country, and we might have another war. That is why I do not consider 150,000 men, to be reduced to 75,000, at all an extravagant number. The amount of money set
aside for civil aviation nobody can say is at all extravagant—the small sum of £3,000,000. That leads me to ask the question, What is the form that State assistance ought to take with regard to civil aviation? In my opinion, industrial enterprise is rather crippled than helped by lavish Government assistance, because as soon as you have considerable Government contribution for the development of an industry you immediately have Government control, and the industry immediately more or less becomes paralysed.
The right hon. Gentleman has told us that the amount of assistance that the Air Ministry will give is not limited to the £3,000,000, but that civil aviation will have besides the advantage of all the assistance of the staff in the various Departments, including the Meteorological Department, and of the pilots, with various routes all over the world, and of these 75,000 men who are to be retained as a permanent portion of the Air Force during this year. What industry requires from the Government is that it should give every reasonable facility for private enterprise to develop. It has to do that internationally in the first instance. I understand that the Paris Conference has adopted, or will adopt very shortly, the rules which have been drawn up by our Government. There is a great deal more than that. Arrangements have got to be made with every foreign country for permission for our aeroplanes to have landing places and the use of aerodromes. That is the first thing that the Government have to do. Private individuals are powerless to do it themselves, and without it the aeroplane industry cannot possibly be developed. The next thing they have to do is to map out the routes along which the flying can be prosecuted in the future, and first it seems to me they ought to develop the routes throughout the Empire. Already, the right hon. Gentleman has told us, two flights have been made to India—from here to Marseilles, then to Rome and Taranto, then on to Suda Bay in Crete, from there to the African coast, and so to Cairo, Cairo being the half-way house to India. Then from Cairo to Karachi, thence to Delhi, and Calcutta. So far, so good, but the right hon. Gentleman stops there, and I suggest that he should continue that route to Australia. It was probably an oversight, but he did not mention it in his speech.

Major-General SEELY: Yes, it was.

Mr. DENNISS: I thought so, and I am glad to hear that the Department are considering mapping out the route as far as Australia. In going that way they would touch Burma, Sumatra, Java, and, if they like to divert a little, New Guinea. They will find then that aviation is already developed in Australia. Australia has already been mapped out by the Australian Government, and as far as the carriage of mails and goods of a certain kind are concerned, arrangements have been made all over the Australian continent. The right hon. Gentleman is fully alive to the necessity of an all red route from London to Cairo down to the Cape. When I was a child—perhaps it is getting on now for sixty years ago—I read the Arabian Nights Entertainments, and it seems now almost as if we lived in those times. I well remember the magic carpet on which the magician took passengers from Damascus to Bagdad, and then to the Court of the Princes in Persia, and that route has already been flown over by British airmen. There was a book published some few years before the War by a friend of mine, one of the masters at Harrow, on the strength of nations, and there he says, "In a few years perhaps the German porter at Constantinople will be crying out 'Change here for Europe, Asia, and Africa.'" That situation very nearly arrived in the present War, as we all know now, but I hope the time will actually arrive when Cairo will be perhaps the great exchange, of air traffic for the world, when English airmen and not German porters will shout out, "Change here for India, for Europe, for Africa, and for Asia." But this will never happen, and can never happen, without enormous assistance by the Government, not in money, but in the provision of aerodromes, repairing stations, and depots for the supply of fuel all along these routes. I know quite well that the Department are ready to do this, but they have got to do it very quickly, otherwise the Allied and neutral nations will be in advance of us. We have got to do more than that, however, and I ask for the sympathy and assistance of the right hon. Gentleman in enabling British manufacturers with the greatest speed possible to exploit the present demand in Allied and neutral countries, and particularly in neutral countries in South America, for the introduction into those countries of aircraft.
I understand that the United States are at the present moment contemplating
sending their machines into the Argentine. A finer country for the purpose of flying does not exist, with great, flat, level plains, young men whose pockets are bursting with money made during the War, accustomed to spend it in Europe every year, but who have not been able to come over here because of the War, and who will be just the sort of men who will be ready to learn flying and to buy machines; and if the British are first in the market, as they are first now in construction, in all human probability we shall lay the foundation of an industry there which will be extremely beneficial to this country. And so in the other neutral countries of the world. But it is for the Government to give manufacturers sufficient facilities in the directions I have indicated in order that they may be able to do this as quickly as possible before foreign countries come in and cut the ground from under our feet. It is not money that the industry wants, but it is the facilities that I have mentioned. I apologise for having detained the House at this length, but I happen to occupy a position on the Air League of the British Empire. It has no connection whatever with any manufacturers, nor does it make a profit out of the industry, but it is merely, like the Navy League, appointed for the purpose of seeing that the fighting side of the Air Force is kept up to its proper strength, and also, now that the War is over, to assist as far as possible in the development of the industry of aviation, not for the benefit of themselves, but for the benefit of our common country.

Mr. REMER: I should like first of all to join in the chorus of economy which has issued from various parts of the House. I do not think the hon. and gallant Member who spoke a little while ago need have had any fear that economy cannot be accompanied also with efficiency, and I do not think that he is quite in accord with my views when he speaks of what the Army wants. I think some-times, at any rate, we ought to think of what the British taxpayer wants. As far as I could make out from the Under-Secretary the amount of money which is going to be spent on aeroplanes during the coining year is approximately about one million sterling. We are asked for a sum of £45,000,000 in the Vote to-day. In other words, for £1,000,000 worth of aeroplanes we are asked to vote £45,000,000 to administer them. If we think this out
carefully we shall come to the direct conclusion that there is a great deal of waste going on in the administration.

Major-General SEELY: In order that the hon. Member may not be led into a mistake by possibly not catching what I said, of course I did not say we were only going to spend £1,000,000. There are £26,000,000 to be expended during the coming year and £39,000,000 for the remainder of this year, the greater part of this for aeroplanes.

Mr. REMER: I am glad to have that explanation. At the same time, I should like to put before the Committee the view that I think this House, having got into the habit of spending £8,000,000 a day, is finding it exceedingly difficult to get out of it. I also press upon the House the view that it is necessary in the interests of the nation to get out of the rut, and try to think a little bit about economy. I know something about the administration of the Air Force during the War, and I know at the present time there is a very large amount of money which could be saved in administration. In my opinion there are far too many officials at the present time whose only job of any importance is to write on documents, "Passed on to you, please." I am sure we want to have an inquiry by strong men to see exactly what the work is that is required of these officials, and whether it is necessary to employ quite as many people as are there, because I am quite sure there is a tendency for work to make work, and it is a very difficult thing to get people out of jobs when they are in them. I do not want it to be thought that I wish to do anything to diminish in any way the efficiency of the Air Force, or to do anything to prevent money being spent on civilian aviation, a subject on which I am very keen, not only from the practical side, but also from the side of encouraging every industry in the British Empire. My only object in intervening in this Debate is to join in the plea that has been brought forward that economy is absolutely necessary at the present moment in the interests of the Empire.

Major-General SEELY: I understand that there is one other point which my Noble Friend (Lieutenant-Colonel Lord H. Cavendish-Bentinck) is anxious to raise, but, as there appear to be no other speakers on the general question, it may be convenient to the Committee if I make a very brief reply on the points
raised in the Debate. First of all, with regard to what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford (Mr. Joynson-Hicks) and also my hon. and gallant Friend opposite, the principle on which we propose to act in the Royal Air Force in the future is the same as that for which the Royal Flying Force was first formed, namely, that everyone in the force shall learn to fly, and the future of the observer will then be found after he has flown probably, and not before. Of course it may be said that there are some administrative services which cannot be filled by flying men. I hardly believe that that is true. I do not know that there is any member of the force, except the chaplain, who would not be better or learning to fly, and even the chaplain, as my hon. Friend said, would get sooner to heaven in that way than in any other.

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: I did not say that.

8.0 P.M.

Major-General SEELY: I understood my hon. Friend to say so. The hon. Member for Brentford raised the point as to whether the recommendations of the Civil Aerial Transport Committee would be borne in mind in the draft aerial convention which we are submitting to the Allied nations. The answer most certainly is "Yes," and that most valuable document, the Report of that Committee, has been largely the framework on which we have founded all our proposals, and I take this opportunity, on behalf of the Government, of expressing my cordial thanks to Members of this House and of the other House, and to gentlemen outside this House who were members of that Committee, from Lord North-cliffe as Chairman down to those who joined later in the proceedings. Their Report to the Committee is one of the most valuable documents ever presented to a Government. Several Members have raised the importance of giving more comfort to our flying men, both officers and men, and my hon. Friend opposite and an hon. Friend behind me both suggested that arrangements should be made if possible for plenty of outdoor exercise and amusement. We do recognise that. The airman's life is a most peculiar one, in that he cannot be in the air more than a comparatively short time, if for no other reason than the enormous expense and the enormous distance covered in a comparatively short time. In two hours he can go 200 miles. Therefore
there must be much leisure, and it is of the most vital importance, that that leisure should have the opportunity of useful employment and enjoyment. We shall do what we can in that matter.
All recent speakers have urged the importance of economy, but none, I think, has suggested that these particular Estimates are too high. Some have suggested that there has been waste in the management of aerodromes. I dare say that may have been so. In fact, we know that in one case a very important and impartial committee found there had been great waste. I welcome the knowledge that they bring to me of any occasion where there is wasteful or extravagant administration. Not only do I welcome it, but I invite it, and I hope any hon. Member in this House who believes there is anything wasteful or uneconomical being done will bring it to my attention. I believe there is no one who is not anxious in the abstract for economy, but it is quite clear that, during the desperate struggle in which we were engaged, when everything had to be sacrificed, regardless of expense, for getting on with the War, a standard may have been set and a scale of expenditure arrived at which is not reasonable now. Many people have forgotten it—I must have forgotten during the four years I was abroad—but I will do my utmost to ensure due economy, as I know will all the members of the Air Ministry Staff, who have the strictest instructions in that regard, and who, I may say, I have found—both members of the Council and others—as anxious to check waste wherever they can find it as anyone else.
I much regret that I was absent from the House for a few moments when the hon. Member for Leyton (Lieutenant-Colonel Malone) was speaking, but I understand he said the Admiralty objected to the present position of the Air Force and wanted to withdraw their Force. That is not the case, so far as I know; it is new to me. I do not believe the Admiralty have any idea of doing any such thing. I am quite sure that they, in common with the War Office, sec clearly that the only way to administer an Air Force is by an Air Ministry, and I can only repeat what my right hon. Friend would, I know, have said if he were here, that his holding both offices does not in the least mean that the independence of the Royal Air Force and
the Air Ministry is in any degree jeopardised. Quite the contrary. The fact that my right hon. Friend is so keenly interested in flying himself, and was one of the first to encourage it—he has, I believe, with the exception of my I self, flown more than any other Member of the House, except of course those gallant professional officers we have with us—is a proof that he is not likely to allow the Air Force to lose a jot or tittle of its independence. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Chatham made a most interesting speech and begged that the Royal Air Force should not be put under the heel of unsympathetic, unscientific, and occasionally incompetent Staff officers from the other Services. He told us that in a highly technical matter he was interrupted by a Staff officer, who said to him, "Let me see, perpendicular—what is it, is it up and down, or is it sideways?" He was, he said, ill-disposed towards officers of that kind who sometimes had a total absence of scientific knowledge. I give him with the greatest pleasure the assurance that he requires. I would add that I do not believe there are many such officers in the flying service. The Noble, and I think I may now say without any friction, the gallant Lord, told us that a man should begin to fly when he was sixteen; that he himself had learnt to fly and crashed down many a good machine, I understand, but all that without losing his determination to continue the flying art. Therefore, as my Noble Friend started to learn the business when at the age of, I think, forty or forty-four, or there abouts—

Lord HUGH CECIL: Forty-five.

Major-General SEELY: In reply to both officers, may I say that we do realise that the airman is a different being to the sailor or the soldier. He has a different outlook on life. He believes that he should have his own Staff college, and he shall have it. He considers that there should be an Air Staff just as much as there is a General Staff at the War Office or a General Staff which is being created at the Admiralty. With those who think that there should be one great Defence Ministry, I may say that the necessary step to that end would be that matters which, appertain to the air should have a department even more than any other department, and a staff of its own, so as to make those con-
cerned feel that their contribution of flying to the other two links them together very, very closely. Therefore, everything will be done to carry out the ideal put before us eloquently by the hon. and gallant Gentleman—that the Air Force should have its own pride of ancestry, pride of race, pride in its gallant and sporting spirit, pride in its highly technical and scientific knowledge, pride in the fact that in this War it has proved itself the greatest Air Force in the world, and that, while working in ever closer co-operation with the Army and Navy, will become more and more independent in its ideas, thoughts, and aspirations. I hope that that very definite pronouncement will satisfy my hon. Friends who are anxious to insist that the Air Force should retain its independent existence. I understand that the hon. Member for Leyton indicated, or, rather, it might be gathered from his speech, that he thought that General Sykes was in some way superior to General Trenchard and directed him.
I am glad to take this opportunity of saying what I intended to say in my opening statement on that subject. Of course, that is not so. There are three members of the Air Council, General Trenchard, who commands the military side; General Ellington, who is responsible for the production and research side; and General Sykes, who, as everyone knows, is the Controller-General of Civil Aviation. None of them can be said to be the boss of the other, to use homely words. Certainly, the last thing General Sykes or General Trenchard wish to do would be to say that the one was superior to the other. The line of demarcation of their spheres is quite clear. I know that they will work in cordial co-operation together for the benefit of flying. What I am anxious to say is that we do owe a great debt of gratitude to General Trenchard for his services during the War. That has been given expression to, I think, before. But it would not be proper in introducing Air Estimates not to refer to them. The Independent Air Force which, of course, would form part of our fighting forces if ever we went to war again at once, was under his command, and had a vital effect in bringing the War to a victorious conclusion. The fact that he at once, when asked to come forward to take over his present duties again, did so, places the Government and the country in his debt. I regret to say he has been seriously, not to say most dangerously, ill.
I was glad to hear this morning that he was better and with every hope of a speedy recovery. I am sure the whole House will wish well to both General Sykes and General Trenchard. General Sykes, who takes up this most difficult and new post, and General Trenchard who took over at a most critical time.

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: Before the right hon. and gallant Gentleman passes from that, will he tell us something about the staff organisation of General Syke's Department? He promised that.

Major-General SEELY: I did, and I had it on my notes, but, as in the case of other things, Iomitted to mention it as I intended to do. I am glad to say that all the senior officers of General Syke's staff have been selected, and that the whole staff is in process of formation. I have every hope that in a a very short time the whole thing will be in working order. In the meantime I muse admit that owing to the influenza having laid by General Trenchard and myself, and both having to be consulted in the allocation of these posts earlier through the temporary indisposition of General Sykes, but most probably due to my fault in catching the influenza, there has been delay. I can only apologise for it, and say we will catch it up at the first possible moment. The Committee may rest assured that I will not leave any stone unturned to catch up the unavoidable delay.

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: Will it be a purely military or civil staff?

Major-General SEELY: There will be military and civil officers. Most of the posts, if not all, will be filled by officers of the Royal Air Force who have been in it, because, during the War, everybody who could fly or took an interest in flying joined the Force if he was young enough to do so. But it is not intended that it should be a military organisation in any sense of the word. So much is that the case that General Sykes asked to be allowed to retire from the Air Force in order to emphasise the civilian aspect of his duties. I do not know that there is any other point which I have not replied to, but if there is, and attention is called to it, I shall reply. Having said that, perhaps we may hear the point which my Noble Friend behind me wishes to raise, and then be permitted to have these Estimates as it is urgent to get on with the necessary work.

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: Perhaps the right hon. and gallant Gentleman will agree to make a full statement in regard to the civil aviation side of the organisation as soon as he is in a position to do so, perhaps in answer to a question?

Major-General SEELY: Yes, Sir; I shall be glad to do that. If my hon. Friend will put down a question in ten days' time I hope I will be able to make a full statement.

Orders of the Day — MISS DOUGLAS PENNANT.

Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCK: I beg to move to reduce Vote A by 100 men.
I have put this Motion down to draw attention to the dismissal of Miss Violet Douglas Pennant. I should like to explain that I am very sorry indeed to have to say anything that is disagreeable, firstly, to my right hon. and gallant Friend, and, secondly, that may seem to be derogatory to the Air Service. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman is a very old friend of mine, and nobody has a greater admiration for the distinguished services rendered to the nation by him or the Air Service. This question is not merely a personal one. The dismissal of Miss Douglas Pennant goes to the very root of the efficiency of the public service, and the treatment which was accorded to her really undermines that confidence which justice and fairness ought to inspire. Miss Pennant was ostensibly dismissed because of the exigencies of the public service, and the excuse given is because the efficiency of the Service demanded it. That is merely the ostensible reason, but the real reason is that she from the very first was the victim of a conspiracy and an intrigue, and Lord Weir, instead of supporting her in her efforts to secure the efficiency of the Service, got rid of her, and thereby supported and condoned the action of those who were obstructing the efficiency of the public service.
Miss Pennant was no untried person. She had a long and distinguished career of public service, and her efficiency and capacity as an Insurance Commissioner has won for her the affection and esteem of the whole of the people of Wales. On 22nd April she was invited to take the head of the Women's Royal Air Force, and she only consented if she might have an opportunity of looking round for a month. She found she was up against a corrupt clique of people who were running the Women's Air Force at that time, who
were determined that it should be run in an inefficient way or not at all. For instance, she was refused all information as to the Service over which she was supposed to preside. She was even refused information as to what camps had women of the Royal Air Force working in them. She went to the Master-General of Personnel and told him that she could not possibly accept the post unless she had his support, and Sir Godfrey Paine promised her his support, and said she was to Save the sole command of the Air Force, and at all times to have access to himself. Therefore she accepted the post.
Soon after that she was asked to promote five most unsuitable and inexperienced women to high and responsible positions, but she refused to do so and said they must take subordinate positions in which they had proved their worth. Lord Weir upheld her decision, but this caused great discontent and animosity in the clique to which I have referred, and they made it their business to make her position impossible. She got messages to say that she would be very soon turned out of the place, and stating that highly-placed people were determined that she should not hold her position any longer. These people actually went to the length of issuing instructions in her name without her knowledge, and behind her back, with the sole object of making her out a most unreasonable person. Telephone messages were sent in her name of which she had not the slightest knowledge, and she went to Sir Godfrey Paine and said she could not possibly carry on her work unless a certain officer at the head of the men's department of the Women's Air Force was dismissed. Sir Godfrey Paine, who always supported her in the most loyal way, got rid of this officer, and for a time everything went smoothly and the Service made great progress.
Unfortunately, Sir Godfrey Paine took up a position in France, and General Brancker took his place, and he had not been in office more than three days, and had hardly had time to sec whether Miss Pennant was efficient or not, when he sent for her and dismissed her on the spot. I do not know whether he did so by Lord Weir's order or not, but she was dismissed in an extremely summary manner. I think probably my right hon. Friend will tell us that since Miss Pennant was dismissed, and since her successor has taken over her work, things have gone on
much more smoothly than before. That may be the truth, but it is not the whole truth. The whole truth is that when Miss Pennant took up this post she found the Women's Royal Air Force was a perfect mess of corruption and intrigue, and the whole Service was in an utter state of disorganisation. Although there was a large staff they had done absolutely nothing. There was no register, no system of finding letters, and what is more important there was no clothing to be got for the women. There were actually 500 camps in which women were working, and only seventy-three women officers, and Miss Pennant fought against the difficulties placed in her way, and proceeded to put these things right.
She secured accommodation for training officers, and in eleven weeks she trained no less than 300 women officers, and, further than that, she started a training scheme for 12,000 cooks, and typists, and general servants. It would be more-honest to say, and I hope my right hon. Friend will say, that the efficiency of the Service of the present day, to a very large extent, is due to the excellent spade work put in by Miss Pennant when she was there. I think it is really deplorable that she was not allowed to carry on her work.
I know perfectly well that in war-time no officer has a vested interest in his post. We have seen officers got rid of, not for any misconduct, but simply and solely because the exigencies of the Service demanded that somebody else should have that position. I do say, however, that Miss Pennant was not dismissed for any inefficiency or unpopularity, but she was dismissed simply and solely because she was not allowed to have a fair chance, and because she was up against this corrupt clique of people who put every obstacle in her way. She was the victim, of malice, intrigue, and conspiracy, and I think it is a monstrous thing for a Department to say either that she was unpoular or inefficient, because she was neither one nor the other. Lord Londonderry, in another place, speaking for the Air Ministry, said that if charges of corruption and intrigue were made, Miss Pennant should have an inquiry. Well, she has brought charges of corruption and intrigue against members of the Ministry. I myself bring charges of corruption here and now, and it will be a monstrous thing if the pledge which Lord Londonderry has given in another place is not upheld and given by the Minister now.

Brigadier-General Sir OWEN THOMAS: I associate myself with all that has been said by my hon. and Noble Friend.

Lord H. CAVENDISH - BENTINCK: On a point of Order. Are we not to have the presence of the Air Minister?

The CHAIRMAN: I understand that he is being sent for.

Sir OWEN THOMAS: Anyone who has really considered this case and is aware of all the facts in connection with it can come to no other conclusion than that Miss Douglas Pennant has been cruelly treated. She was dismissed in an abrupt and, I should say, an insulting manner, and certainly contrary to Regulations. I should like to quote the Regulations which govern the Women's Royal Air Force:
Provided that your service may be terminated forthwith, on the ground of misconduct, false answer on enrolling, or breach of conditions, on receipt of notice given by the Air Council, or, in the event of your services being no longer required, that they may be terminated by one month's notice in writing being given to you.
There was no notice given to Miss Douglas Pennant; She was not given the option, as is generally the case, of resigning her position, although ten days before she had sent in her resignation. It was then refused, and she was begged to go on, as she was doing really good work. At that time a question was asked in this House as to whether Miss Douglas Pennant was giving satisfaction, and the answer given by the Parliamentary Secretary was that they had every confidence in this lady's ability and discretion. Ten days afterwards General Brancker was appointed to succeed General Sir Godfrey Paine. Miss Douglas Pennant worked one day with him, and on the following day he told her that she was not required any longer and that she could leave that moment. There have been so many reasons given by different heads of the Department in connection with this case that it is difficult to know what is meant, I asked a question in this House, and I was referred to what had taken place in the other House. Lord Londonderry there said:
I am given to understand that there is an idea in Miss Violet Douglas Pennant's mind, and in the minds of the Noble Lords who are taking up the case, that she has been the victim of malice and the victim of conspiracy. I say on behalf of the Government that the Secretary of State will leave no stone unturned to probe this allegation to its uttermost limits. If Miss Douglas Pennant can bring forward a primâ facie case in which she will state the names of
the individuals who are associated in the responsible action, giving us the dates, and details, and facts, an inquiry shall most certainty be held and all these facts brought to light, to the satisfaction not only of Miss Douglas Pennant and the Noble Lords who are supporting her, but also to the satisfaction of your Lordships' House and the other House of Parliament.
Mention was made of an apology. If it were offered, after what has happened, it would be adding insult to injury. After Miss Douglas Pennant's dismissal she saw the Prime Minister, and he ordered an inquiry. He asked the hon. Gentleman the Member for Luton (Mr. Harmsworth) to inquire into the matter, and he did so. He made a Report, but Miss Douglas Pennant has never seen that Report. We know that the Report was favourable to Miss Douglas Pennant, and I think we have a right to ask for it, or that an inquiry shall be held—one or the other. It is possible that it will be denied that we can prove that a report was made. We want to know by whose authority General Brancker dismissed Miss Douglas Pennant. The Regulation provides for a month's notice in writing to any officer whose service is no longer required, except in specific cases of misconduct. How is it that Miss Douglas Pennant was dismissed three weeks after a statement was made in the House expressing confidence in her ability and discretion? We should like to know what new facts were brought to the attention of the Air Ministry during this period, and also what has become of the Report of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Luton. Lord Londonderry said that Lord Weir had written to Miss Douglas Pennant a fortnight before she was dismissed. In this letter he is supposed to have said that the time had come when certain arrangements were to be made, and he was preparing the way for her to go. Lord Londonderry was asked for the date of that letter He gave the date as 6th September, a fortnight after Miss Douglas Pennant had been dismissed. Miss Douglas Pennant, however, knows nothing at all about that letter. It is altogether an imaginary letter. This, therefore, is a very extraordinary case. Apparently, the officials have got somebody to shield. I do not think that the Air Ministry is noted for its good manners or its judgment, and we have a right, on behalf of Miss Pennant, to ask the Under-Secretary to consider this matter. What harm would be done to anyone if an inquiry were held? The innocent would not suffer. Miss Douglas Pennant has been dismissed with a stigma attaching to her, and that is unbearable
to any lady who has done what she has done in the service of her country for the last twenty years. I appeal to you to grant an inquiry. There is no harm in doing so—absolutely no harm—and I feel certain, if the right hon. Gentleman will look on both sides of the question, he will come to the conclusion that in this case an inquiry is absolutely necessary.

Sir ROBERT THOMAS: My Noble Friend (Lord H. Cavendish-Bentinck) and my hon. Friend opposite (Sir O. Thomas) have gone very fully into this case, but there are one or two points I should like to refer to and emphasise. The Committee will observe that Miss Pennant was invited to leave the position of Commissioner on the Welsh Insurance Commission to take up the position as Commandant of the Women's Royal Air Force. Miss Pennant heard that there had been a good deal of disorder and irregularity in the Women's Royal Air Force, and she was very reluctant indeed to assume that very responsible position, and, as my Noble Friend has mentioned, she took, actually, a month before she accepted the invitation. Having accepted it, she applied herself with her usual energy and enthusiasm to her task. One of the first things she asked Sir Godfrey Paine: "May I have direct access to you the Master-General of Personnel?" She was very anxious, having regard to what she heard about her predecessor's disputes, that she should have direct access to the Master-General of Personnel. That request was acceded to, and this is the crux of the whole of this unfortunate affair. What happened after that? Brigadier-General Livingstone, who was head of a branch of this force called M 3, immediately took exception to the grant of Miss Pennant's request that she should have direct access to Sir Godfrey Paine, and he warned her that that would be the downfall and break up of the Women's Royal Air Force. That was the beginning of this malicious intrigue. That was the beginning of this intrigue because Miss Pennant was determined not to meet with the same experience as her predecessor. What was the position of this force as Miss Pennant found it? She had to settle during the period that she was commandant, namely from June to August, and she was dismissed in August, three strikes which broke out amongst these women because they could not get uniforms. They
could not get overalls in which to do the work in the workshop, and notwithstanding every effort on her part those uniforms were not forthcoming. Those uniforms were to come from M 3, and Colonel (name inaudible) was in charge of that. This gentleman was also up against Miss Pennant for the same reason as General Livingstone, and obstructions were placed in the way so that she could not make any progress whatever. But, notwithstanding that, owing to her tact and ability, she was able to settle three strikes during that short period. This colonel may be a very competent man, but to give you an instance of what had taken place in the Air Force this colonel was made in one day from second-lieutenant to lieutenant-colonel.

Major-General SEELY: One day?

Sir R. THOMAS: I think so, and that my right hon Friend will mid it to be correct that he was made lieutenant-colonel from second-lieutenant in one day, and I am advised he saw no experience of the War at all. That was the gentleman who obstructed, deliberately obstructed, and prevented this lady, who rendered such eminent service to her country, from performing her duty in the Air Service. What else did she find in the Air Service—absolute chaos. Some of the things have been referred to by my Noble Friend, but in addition to that there were grave things taking place, and serious things taking place which she ought to have had support in removing instead of being obstructed from removing. You heard of the case of those five women I referred to Brigadier-General Livingstone. Five of those women demanded to be placed in positions that they were unsuited for, and one of those women was the sister of this brigadier-general. They were women who had no experience of the positions that they were applying for. Miss Pennant said, "No, I am willing to train you, I am willing to make you suitable for those positions, but until you get that training I cannot place you in those positions." Those women threatened Miss Pennant. Their names are known. One is Mrs. Stevenson. Several of them said to her, "Look here, we warn you now we have friends, and unless you place us in those positions, then into the street you will go!" And verily the prophecy was verified and she was turned into the street, and by whom we want to find out, and for what we want to find out. Can anybody say—can any hon. Gentleman say there was not
a conspiracy, a deep-rooted conspiracy, with malice behind it, to prevent this lady from performing her duty, and to uphold a system of corruption in the Air Service?
Those are a few of the things. There are other things which she found. For instance, unsuitable buildings which had been acquired by officers on behalf of the Government were palmed on to her for training purposes, buildings that were totally unsuitable for training, and that was one of the most important functions which Miss. Pennant had to perform, namely, the training of women for this service. Unsuitable buildings were bought and pressed upon her, and because she declined to take those buildings there was more persecution on that ground. What happened? There was a persistent determination upon everybody's part to get her out. Instructions were issued in her name that were never issued by her at all. She was prevented by all manner of means from attending conferences which it was vital for her to attend. Why? On the 16th August she notified General Paine that she could not put up with this any longer. She asked him would he relieve her of this position and appoint a successor? Sir Godfrey Paine begged and implored her to remain in her position. He stated that he had every possible confidence in her, that she was thoroughly efficient, and that there was nothing whatever against her. He asked her to remain. She did so. But on the 28th August, General Paine was promoted and General Brancker succeeded him. After one dayonly—he had only had one day's experience of Miss Pennant—he summarily dismissed her. She did not receive a week's notice. She asked him, "When must I go?" The answer was "Immediately." She was summarily dismissed. It is a gross injustice to a lady of her position to be spoken to in that way, after rendering such eminent service to the country, at all events, without some reason being given for that summary dismissal.
The matter was taken up with the Prime Minister. What happened then? The hon. Member for Luton (Mr. Cecil Harmsworth) was requested by the Prime Minister to make an inquiry into this matter, in order to advise him whether, in his opinion, a judicial inquiry should be held. The hon. Member for Luton made his inquiry, he gave his report to the Prime Minister and on that report the Prime Minister said he would grant a judicial inquiry. I suppose that that is
not denied. If it is, I have letters here which support it. The Prime Minister said that Miss Pennant should have a judicial inquiry. Lord Weir intervened and the inquiry was stopped. Why? If the cause of this lady is not a just cause, if she has been guilty of an offence, if she has been guilty of misconduct involving instant dismissal, why all this mystery, why all this shuffling, and why ultimately should the Prime Minister be made to go back upon his pledged word to grant her an inquiry? It is a monstrous injustice. We intend to go to a Division upon the matter. I am a supporter of the Government, but on this matter I shall certainly vote against the Government. I hope we shall go to a Division unless the Government will give way on this inquiry. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has asked Miss Pennant to give him particulars of these charges. Miss Pennant has done so. Here [producing papers] they are. She sent in one statement. It was not specific enough. Another statement was sent in. That was not sufficiently specific. I am perfectly convinced that if she goes on sending in statements from now until Doomsday every one of them will meet with the same fate. I would like to make tins suggestion to the Air Minister, that a Committee of this House, drawn from all parties, should consider the statements made by Miss Pennant. Let a Committee of this House decide whether or not a judicial inquiry should be held. That is fair. What harm can there be in doing that? Why should we entrust the Minister for Air to be solo arbiter in this matter? Let a Committee of this House decide whether the facts as disclosed by Miss Pennant justify a judicial inquiry into her case.

Mr. HINDS: I desire to join in the appeal made by my hon. Friends in regard to this matter. It is a very fair appeal to make on behalf of Miss Pennant that an inquiry should be held. My hon. Friends have made out a good case for an inquiry. I support it because of the good services rendered in every Welsh matter by Miss Pennant in the past. We have evidence of what she has done. She has resigned from every committee with which she was connected in Wales because of the stigma which she feels is placed upon her at this time by the action of the Air Ministry. I support it because we are losing the services of a very able servant from Wales if that stigma is not removed. It is fair to ask that a Committee should go into the whole
charge and I do not see how the Air Minister can refuse to grant it in common fairness. Many a poor soldier who has not had proper treatment has had his case brought before the House. Every citizen has a right to have his grievance brought before the House of Commons. Here is a lady who feels she has been wrongly treated by the Air Ministry. She is not conscious that she has done wrong. She has done her duty as well as she possibly could. No private firm would dismiss a servant at a moment's notice in this way. If it did, it would be held up to obliquy. On the ground of Miss Pennant's services in the past in Wales, I support the appeal.

Sir DAVID DAVIES: I rise for the first time in this House to support the appeal which has already been made by my hon. Friends. I have known Miss Douglas Pennant for some years in connection with the Insurance Commission. I have been and am chairman of the Insurance Commission of my county and I have met Miss Pennant often with the other Commissioners. I have no hesitation in saying that she is a very capable public servant. She is a lady of great tact, good judgment, and one with whom it is easy to get on with on all occasions—although it is not always easy to get on with the Insurance Commissioners. I remarked especially with what tact Miss Douglas Pennant manages a very difficult situation. From my own knowledge of this lady's work for many years, and from the statements that have been made, which I believe are absolutely true, a sufficient case has been made out for an inquiry. That is all we ask. Any servant is entitled to have an inquiry. I have heard Miss Pennant say,
I cannot accept any position in Wales or anywhere else until my character is cleared.
Her character is at stake in this matter. Summary dismissal is a very delicate matter. This House will honour itself by granting an inquiry into this case. I have read the statements myself, and I believe them to be true, but I do not want to refer to them now. It is a matter of such delicacy that perhaps the less you say about it the better. I am fully convinced from my knowledge of Miss Douglas Pennant's services that a full inquiry should be held. The Minister in charge will serve the House of Commons and the country in granting it. There is a great feeling in the country where she is known that she has not been fairly dealt with. I hope I
have said enough to justify an inquiry into the circumstances of Miss Pennant's summary dismissal.

Mr. THOMAS DAVIES: I never heard anything about Miss Douglas Pennant's case until this evening, so that I am quite unprejudiced with regard to it, although I am a Welshman myself. After what has been said here to-night, in common justice to those people who are mixed up with the case, apart from Miss Douglas Pennant herself, there ought to be an inquiry. Accusations have been flung about here this evening, and the names of people have been mentioned. We are told that one man was promoted from second-lieutenant to a lieutenant-colonel at one bound, which I cannot believe is a fact, although it is practically vouched for. We have heard people's names mentioned as having been guilty of jealousy, and that alone, for the fair name of the Air Service, should justify an inquiry being held apart altogether from the case of Miss Douglas Pennant. I would like to say that if an inquiry is pressed for I shall vote for it.

9.0 P.M.

Mr. HAROLD SMITH: I will intervene for a minute only. It occurs to me, as one who has no knowledge whatever of the details and facts of this case, that a very great deal of public fuss has been made over the dismissal of this lady. I do not complain of it. I think the matter, while deplorable, was entirely attributable to the secrecy of the Air Board. This lady is obviously a very distinguished lady, who has rendered very distinguished public service. She has demanded, so far as she in a position to demand, that an inquiry shall be held and publicity given to any charges that may be brought against her, and the only condition that she demands is a condition which must appeal to every fair-minded Englishman, namely, that the charges that shall be brought against her shall be brought in her presence, in public, and under circumstances which will give her an opportunity of meeting them. That is not an unreasonable request, but is the elementary right of every Englishman. I am a lawyer by profession, and therefore prone to revere the elementary idea that no such charge as is involved in this case should be brought against any person, and least of all against a very distinguished public servant, unless that person has an opportunity of meeting it. As to the particulars of the case, I have no knowledge, but I have heard sufficient
of the speeches here to-night to justify me, I think, in the statement that hon. Members are themselves committing the very fault of which they made complaint against the Air Ministry. We have heard speeches to-night in which they have defended Miss. Douglas Pennant, although they themselves do not know the charge against her. But my complaint is of a very different character. I complain that the charges were not made public and that she has not had an opportunity of meeting them. I do not in any way make any charges against the Air Board that they have wrongfully dismissed her. I am prepared to believe that they had very full and proper grounds for their action. I do not, on the other hand, make any charges against Miss Douglas Pennant, because, there again, I have not had an opportunity of judging the facts. But I think, having regard to the lady's great public service, and the fact, above all, that she was dismissed, as she puts it, in the name of justice, that the facts should be made public. I think the Air Board cannot refrain from giving that publicity which the Committee obviously demands, and which she demands. I really think that a very great deal of harm is unwittingly done by Government Departments in casting a mantle of secrecy, often unnecessarily, over these cases; whereas, with publicity and frankness in regard to many of these complaints—which are really often only molehills in themselves, but grow into mountains entirely by the secrecy cast over them by Government Departments—I think we should hear very little of them. This House is, above all things chivalrous, but above all things just; and I want to qualify anything I say now by again repeating that I have no knowledge whatever of the rights or wrongs of this case. But we are a very chivalrous and just House, and those of us who know my right hon. and gallant Friend who is in charge to-night will say that those qualities are reflected in the Minister who is in charge of this Bill, each of them, and that in no Minister are they more highly reflected than in him. Having regard to the history of this case, and the demands of this lady, and to the publicity on which she has herself insisted and her friends in the Press and in this House. I hope that no rule of chivalry will restrain the Air Board and the right hon. Gentleman from stating the whole of the facts, whatever they are. Because it is only just, if there is anything against
this lady, that it should be stated. Even if a casual observer were to think it un-chivalrous to say harsh things about this lady, I would say that the lady brought it on herself, and that she was the first to demand it. But let us have the facts, in order to silence the tongues of criticism, if the Air Board have done justice; and, if they cannot be silenced, then let us have an admission from the Air Board that the circumstances in which this lady was dismissed were such as were not justified.

Major-General SEELY: I have listened to all the speeches made on this subject, and I regret that my right hon. Friend the Member for Dundee (Mr. Churchill) is not here to answer them, as he has taken a very lively personal interest in this case during the time I was laid up with influenza. But I have full cognisance of his views on the subject, which I share, and I will endeavour to reply and to clear away some misapprehensions. Of course, we all want to see fair play to Miss Douglas Pennant. Nobody wants to see it more than myself. I was far away at the time when this episode took place, and I can clear away all misconception by saying at ones that, if I could choose, myself, whether we had a full inquiry or not, for my own convenience and peace of mind I would have an inquiry forthwith. But I must put the other side. Not because anybody in the Air Ministry has said to me, "Oh, you must not have an inquiry: it would be very unwise." There is not the least shadow of foundation for that, for nobody has ever suggested to me that it would be inconvenient to him to have an inquiry. What I am bound to say, and what my right hon. Friend would say, and what I think anybody on reflection would say, is this: You cannot have an inquiry into the action of a Secretary of State in superseding any individual, however highly placed, however competent for other purposes, in time of war, because, if you do, you immediately open the door to a demand for an inquiry into every similar case. I do rejoice that this matter has been brought on here to-night. I love the House of Commons, because you always get the truth.

Mr. H. SMITH: Do you?

Major-General SEELY: In the long run truth prevails. Truth prevails because all views are heard. The other day, when there were questions on this subject, there
was a most dramatic proof of the statement I have just made. On the same day that questions were being put asking that an inquiry should be held into the case of Miss Douglas Pennant, my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Christchurch (Brigadier-General Page Croft) was urging with equal vigour that there should be an inquiry into all the super sessions of general and other officers who were removed from their positions during the War. Now, there were hundreds of these cases. I myself have been present at a place which was known as Stellenbosch Corner, where, after an inquiry into their capabilities, three general officers, five highly-placed Staff officers, and six other officers, were deprived of their command without any reason given—the three generals in one day, and the rest in the two succeeding days.

Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCK: Is that any reason why an injustice should be committed against Miss Pennant.

Major-General SEELY: I am glad my Noble Friend has asked the question. If this happened in the one case where I was, how many other cases does he suppose there were of officers, from generals downwards in rank, who were superseded during the War?

An HON. MEMBER: This was dismissal.

Major-General SEELY: No, it is an exactly similar case. You cannot have an inquiry into a case where a person is superseded by a competent authority unless it can be shown that there was malice or corruption on the part of the authority.

Mr. H. SMITH: Does my right hon. Friend recognise no distinction between supersession in the field in time of war and supersession from Whitehall?

Major-General SEELY: I recognise no distinction. There may be a distinction between men and women, but there can be no distinction between the field and hero because officers in the Army and in the Navy and officials of all kinds in Government Departments were ruthlessly superseded during the War.

An HON. MEMBER: Is it the fact that Miss Douglas Pennant was dismissed, not because she was inefficient, but because it was said she was unpopular?

Major-General SEELY: It was never said she was inefficient; in fact, it was expressly said she was most efficient.

An HON. MEMBER: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us why in those circumstances the Prime Minister nevertheless promised an inquiry?

Major-General SEELY: I do not think the Prime Minister granted this inquiry, but as he is not here I cannot verify it. I am by no means a hostile witness. I am anxious to get at the truth, and I think we shall get it, but only in the right way, not in the wrong way. I am trying to show that you cannot, if you are to have proper government, have an inquiry whenever anyone is superseded who holds an important post, and if they are influential and important and rightly regarded as people of competence it is all the more reason why the ultimate authority must have power, especially in time of war, to supersede them without reason given. This case has been argued again and again for years past, and it has always been maintained by every Government, and I hope always will be maintained, that the State must have power to supersede important and influential people if it considers others can do the business better. Let me clear away one misconception about dismissal and supersession. Miss Douglas Pennant could have returned to the Welsh Insurance Committee. She did not do so because she thought her dismissal implied a slur upon her, but she was no more dismissed than the general officers to whom I have referred and the hundreds of other officials who have been superseded. She came, most generously and most patriotically, from the Welsh Insurance Commission in order to try to manage this most difficult business, and I pay my acknowledgments to the work she did from all I have heard. But when Lord Weir came to the conclusion that another lady would do it better he gave instructions to the officer referred to, General Brancker, that she should be informed that she could no longer hold the post, and had she accepted the statement so made to her, most abruptly, in a manner I do not in the least attempt to excuse—had she accepted that as hundreds of other people did, she would of course have gone back to the Welsh Insurance Committee.

Sir O. THOMAS: Why did not Lord Weir accept her resignation, which was
tendered ten days before she was dismissed, or give her the option of putting in her resignation?

Major-General SEELY: That I do not know.

Sir O. THOMAS: We know!

Major-General SEELY: If "we know" it should be stated. There is no mystery as far as I can ascertain, and I do not believe there is any. We have been asked two definite questions. The first was, Who told General Brancker to dismiss Miss Douglas Pennant? The answer is Lord Weirtold him to do so. He takes the full responsibility. He says that he carefully considered who was the best person. He thought Miss Violet Douglas Pennant was the best person until, as time went on, he came to the conclusion that, hard as she was trying to do her best, competent as she was in other respects, she was not the best fitted for this position. He was quite sure about that. He took the fullest responsibility. The next question is, What is the charge against Miss Douglas Pennant? There is no charge against her. There is the opinion of the competent authority of that day, long ago, that, although far from there being a charge against her she was one of the best and most patriotic, one of the most competent and efficient ladies in England or Wales, she was emphatically not the best fitted to be the head of the Women's Royal Air Force. I have said what I have said, not out of compliment to her, but because it is manifestly true. But I wish my hon. Friends around me would see that it really must be open to the Secretary of State to decide who are the best people to fill particular appointments. It cannot be said that if anyone is told, "You must go back to your other position" you must have an immediate inquiry. It would be utterly subversive of all discipline. I ask the House to support me in saying you cannot allow that to be said. If I had replied, "There are charges against Miss Douglas Pennant, but I will not say what they are"—if I had said, "There are reasons why there should not be an inquiry," it would be different. But I do not say that. There are not words strong enough to say how highly I regard Miss Douglas Pennant and the services she has rendered to the State, and I know Lord Weir would say the same if he were standing in my place. In the most difficult, and very peculiar job of administering this Women's Royal Air Force
we came to the conclusion that she was not the best fitted for it, in the same way as the Secretary of State for War or the Home Secretary or the First Lord of the Admiralty constantly, without reason given, says, "This most excellent officer is not best suited to be," whatever it may be—second Sea Lord, or Master of the Horse—and he is sent back to his regiment. The State must have power to do that. If there is to be an inquiry as to whether Lord Weir was right in superseding this most admirable lady because he believed another lady could do it better, and we would get on with the War better, I say No. If, on the other hand, it be said, and I think it is said, "We grant you that," and if it is said, "That is all very well; we do not question the right or power of the Secretary of State to supersede any one, especially in time of war, unless it is shown—

Mr. HAYDAY: Assuming the Minister abuses his power, surely this House has the right to demand inquiry.

Major-General SEELY: I was going on to say, unless malice or corruption be shown. Of course, if malice or corruption be alleged against the late Secretary of State—[Hon. Members: "It is alleged!"]—that makes it all the more urgent and necessary that his conduct should be inquired into. On that I may say at once that the idea that Lord Weir, whose disinterested services to this country during the War it would be impossible to exaggerate, would fear any such inquiry is ridiculous in the extreme. He has no reason to fear it. What we cannot do is to inquire whether the Secretary of State had the right and power—whether he was right or wrong in his consideration, and whether it is alleged that this lady was or was not best fitted for that particular job—to supersede this lady. On that I cannot proceed, and on behalf of the Government I say that I will not proceed, and if there is going to be a Division, so let it be. But I hope the House understands that if I insist on that I may be allowed now to continue what I was saying when I was interrupted by the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Hayday). If a specific charge is made that this lady was best fitted for the job, and that there was malice or corruption on the part of anybody from the Secretary of State downward, and if a primâ facie, case is made out we will at once order an inquiry into that specific allegation. But be it clearly understood
that the question of the right of the Secretary of State in his unfettered discretion to remove anyone at any time, and especially at a time of war, to supersede anyone, we cannot have inquired into. The true answer to that is to bring the Secretary of State to the Bar of justice in this House, or, if there be malice or corruption shown, to bring him to the Bar of an appropriate tribunal; but to inquire into his right to supersede anyone would be fatal to good government.

Sir O. THOMAS: Prussian rule.

Major-General SEELY: Far from being Prussian rule, it has been the rule under which this highly democratic England has prospered while Prussian institutions have been brought to ruin. It is not Prussian rule, but the exact opposite. The Secretary of State is responsible to this House, and if this House does not like him they can turn him out at a moment's notice. He is the man in whom power and responsibility is reposed in order that everything may be brought home. I hope I have made myself quite clear. Into any specific allegation of malice or corruption against any official, from the Secretary of State of that date downward, the fullest inquiry will be made by an appropriate tribunal, and on that I think it would be well to adopt the suggestion of the hon. Gentleman opposite, that we should get the advice of this House as to the kind of tribunal that it would be best to set up, and which, if a primâ facie case is set up, will satisfy all reasonable men. But on the question as to whether the Secretary of State has the right to supersede anyone in time of war, without reason given, we cannot agree to an inquiry, because it would open the door to an endless series of inquiries, involving hundreds in this War and involving many in the future. I trust that this frank statement will satisfy hon. Members. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no!"] If not, I know that my right hon. Friend will be very glad to make a further statement if hon. Members are not satisfied and can give reasons why they dissent from the views I have put forward.

Sir F. BANBURY: The right hon. Gentleman commenced his speech by stating that any number of generals highly placed in command and any number of Staff officers highly placed in command had been dismissed at a moment's notice without any reason being given. I should be the last person to challenge that right,
but may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether in making that statement he was not alluding to dismissals in the face of the enemy?

Major-General SEELY: No. I did not say dismissals. I said they were superseded, and not in the face of the enemy, but during manœuvres.

Sir F. BANBURY: During manœuvres in war-time?

Major-General SEELY: Yes.

Sir F. BANBURY: I am sure the right hon. and gallant Gentleman does not wish in any kind of way to quibble. My point is that these gallant officers were superseded during the campaign, and I still say in the face of the enemy, because a campaign is practically in the face of the enemy, though you may be fifty or sixty miles off. The conduct of affairs even at the base is very important and when war is going on it is absolutely necessary that if the General in Command thinks that certain generals ought to be dismissed, they have to be dismissed. But that is a very different thing from this case. This is a lady sitting in Whitehall. It did not make any difference, in regard to the enemy or success in the War, whether Miss Pennant was dismissed or superseded, or whether some other lady was put in her place. I would point out that the real argument must be very weak if the right hon. and gallant Gentleman has to fall back upon an argument of that sort. An undertaking was given in another place that if a primâ facie case was established that an inquiry would be made. A primâ facie case has been made, I am informed. I do not know whether Miss Pennant was right or wrong, but an undertaking was given in another place—I will leave out the question of the Prime Minister for the moment—that if a primâ facie case was established an inquiry would be given. What has happened I am informed that a primâ facie case has been made out but an inquiry has been refused, and when the case is raised in this House the right hon. Gentleman tries to ride off on what happened in a foreign country when we were at war and when certain generals were superseded. That has nothing to do with the case of this lady in Whitehall. Whether Miss Smith, or Miss Jones, or Miss Pennant was in charge of a certain number of women in Whitehall does not affect the campaign either in France or in any other part of the world.
Having advanced what I consider to be a very futile argument the right hon. Gentleman then falls back upon another argument and says that if a primâ facie case is made out that there has been malice or corruption he will grant an inquiry. Everybody who has sat in the House with me knows that I am the last person to decry discipline or to say that an officer in command or a Secretary of State cannot if he chooses supersede or dismiss any person who he thinks is incompetent. But my right hon. and gallant Friend goes out of his way to say that this is a most competent lady.

Major-General SEELY: Not for this job!

Sir F. BANBURY: That is what we want to find out. How is it that such a very exceptional person who is so competent is not particularly competent for this job in which unfortunately she has been superseded? I do not know the rights or wrongs of the case, but it is perfectly clear that an inquiry is justified. What has the right hon. and gallant Gentleman to be afraid of? If it turns out that this lady was not competent for this post, that is an end of the matter. If, on the other hand, it turns out that she was, is it not right that we should find that out? Everybody knows that there have been changes of favouritism and malice, and probably with correctness. In this particular case it is open to the Government to show that the lady has taken an exaggerated view in thinking that she has been dismissed for unfair reasons, and, if that be so, the Government will come out with flying colours; and, if it is not so, I am quite certain that my right hon. and gallant Friend, who is a fair-minded man, does not wish to shield anybody from the effects of his action. In these circumstances, I trust that this Committee will insist upon an inquiry. We have had quite enough about a primâ facie case. What we want is a very simple thing. Here is a lady who has been superseded—it is generally thought without any ostensible cause—and in those circumstances there should be an inquiry.

Mr. THOMAS: I am sorry that I was unable to hear the whole of my right hon. Friend's statement. I followed the case with interest. I was one of the Members of this House originally responsible for sending a letter to the Press with a view
of demanding an inquiry, and as evidence of the kind of pressure that was applied by someone—whom we do not know—that letter was refused publication. The issue that the Committee have to consider is a very simple one. There is common agreement that Miss Douglas Pennant was not only a capable but an efficient administrator. My right hon. Friend has admitted that this evening. But she herself only a few days prior to her dismissal offered her resignation because she felt that she was put to this work not because she was Miss Douglas Pennant, but because of her previously known ability in another Government Department, and her own object was to render the best service to the State. Who is responsible for refusing her resignation? The same people who were ultimately responsible for her dismissal. They cannot have it both ways. If, when she offered her resignation, they said, "No; in our judgment you will be serving the best interests of the country by remaining at your post," we can only conclude that they made that statement and expressed that wish because in their considered judgment she was of value in the work she was doing. If that was the reason we are now entitled to ask what happened in the interval of refusing the resignation and dismissing her without question?
So far there have been excuses made, but there has been no explanation. The excuse made has been that Miss Pennant could not get on with other members of the staff, and we are now entitled to ask if she could not get on with these same members of the staff five days after her resignation was refused, how was it that not being able to get on with these people five days before did not weigh with those in authority? Therefore we have got to hear her side of the case. She says that the first cause of the trouble was that she was asked to promote five ladies, and she said, "Yes, I will promote them only after I am satisfied that they are fit for the position." Surely, if we are going to talk about the purity of public life and about efficiency, if a Minister defends himself by saying that the efficiency of this Department must be his only consideration—that is what my right hon. Friend says—is she not entitled to say that the efficiency of an officer must be her only consideration? But because she says this, and because she carried out the very principle that you yourself lay down, she is dismissed. The Prime Minister was asked to intervene,
because it is quite fair to know that Miss Pennant was the Prime Minister's original nominee for the post. It is no secret, and the question of class, or that she is a lady in any station of life, has nothing whatever to do with it. The Prime Minister was altogether too busy, naturally, but he was so satisfied on the evidence submitted to him, that he said to one of his private secretaries, "I am too busy. There is something in this case. Go and investigate it for me." That is what he said to the hon. Member for Luton (Mr. Harmsworth). The hon. Member investigated it, and it is implied, but has never been said, that the investigation was a superficial one. I am assured that it was nothing of the kind. I am assured that great pains were taken by the hon. Member for Luton to try if possible to give effect to the Prime Minister's own wish and to present to him a fair and impartial statement of the case. He does it, and we have strong grounds for knowing that that report was entirely in favour of Miss Pennant. I have no hesitation in declaring across the floor that I am certain it was and that it exonerated her from all blame, but, curiously enough, whatever questions were asked in this House by hon. Members, and though all manner of pressure was applied in order that that Report should be published, up till now it has been positively refused.
Supposing for a moment that that Report condemned the lady and justified the action of the Department, I venture to assert that there would not be a second question in this House but that the Department would produce the Report in order to prove their own action. But, on the other hand, what did the Prime Minister have in his mind by asking for a Report? I submit it was clearly to get an impartial view of the whole of the facts, and if that was his view, are we not entitled to say now that, just as he felt an inquiry was then necessary, so this House of Commons is entitled to-day at least to see that Report, and that Report so far is not forthcoming. Therefore, it appears to me that there is one course only open for my right hon. Friend, because it will be a very dangerous situation for him. This is not one lady. there is a principle affecting everybody under the jurisdiction of the War Office involved in this, and there is a question of justice, whether it be to an officer or a private, involved, and after all, when we talk of discipline, no one, and
rightly, endeavours to enforce it more than the War Office. I do not complain of that, because I recognise how necessary it is, but curiously enough the complaint against this lady is that she was too strict in discipline—the very virtue that is claimed in other connections as condemned in her particular case. Therefore, on all those grounds I submit that the War Office course is clear. Let it be observed that both my right hon. Friends are defending something they are not responsible for—neither of them is responsible—and, therefore, I put it to them that their brief is only after all a brief and not something that affects them personally, but it does affect the honour of this lady. It strikes absolutely at the fundamental principle of our public life that justice must be done at the top and at the bottom. Here is a woman who positively refuses to go back to her position in the Insurance Commission, and why? Because she says, "No, here is a stain on my character which, if it is true, renders me incapable of discharging my other public duties." That is her answer, and she is entitled to have that removed, and it can only be removed by a free, full, and impartial inquiry. If there is some evidence we know nothing about, let it come out. If there is something that the War Office feel that at the moment they are not prepared to reveal, let them reveal it in an inquiry, but so far there is no suggestion of that kind. Surely, having regard to the public testimony paid by my right hon. Friend, having regard to the apology that was made for this case in the House of Lords by the Noble Lord speaking on behalf of the War Office, and having regard to the fact that the public that know something of this case believe that it is a scandal, I submit to my right hon. Friend that he ought frankly to say, "Yes, we will have an inquiry; we will have the whole of the facts brought out, and then Parliament will be able to judge as to whether justice has been done or not."

Mr. CHURCHILL: The House has taken a great interest in this important personal case, and one can easily see by the attitude of many of those who are present that they have already, to a very large extent, made up their minds as to what is the proper course for the Government to take. I have heard a lot of personal cases debated in this House at one time and another, and I have often noticed how keen is the interest in those cases, and how very distressing they are to hon. Members who hear the whole
story unfolded rapidly to them of some wrong which has been done, some injustice which has been, committed. They hear strong partisan statements put forward by Members who honestly, ardently, earnestly believe in the sincerity and truth of what they are saying, and they cannot help feeling very much influenced by what they hear. One tale is good until another is told, and one of the difficulties of Parliamentary Debate on personal cases is that there is not time and not the means to tell all the tale. They are too long, too complicated. I have taken the trouble to read the large number of documents bearing on this subject, and I am quits certain it would be possible to discuss their various aspects and significations at indefinite length without arriving at any final conclusion. It is not, I think, upon details, but only upon general principles that the House should consider how it will deal with a matter of this kind, and I fully admit that my right hon. Friend, in the speech which he has just made, did confine himself in the main to general principles.
Let us just see what are the main principles which are involved. In the first place, there is the question whether the discretionary power was rightly used. In the second place, there is the question whether there is any allegation that the discretionary power was corruptly used. Let me take the first aspect. There are, it seems to me, three matters which are more or less common ground on both sides of the House. First of all, it is common ground that the condition of affairs in the Women's Royal Air Force in the six weeks or month preceding Miss Douglas Pennant's departure was not at all satisfactory. That is common ground. Secondly, there was a good deal of friction between Miss Douglas Pennant and some of her subordinates, between her Department of the Ministry and other Departments of it, and between the Air Ministry as a whole and the Ministry of National Service, with which the affairs of the Air Ministry were greatly intermingled, because, as most hon. Members know, the Air Ministry was dependent upon the Ministry of National Service for the recruiting of the Women's Royal Air Force, in the same way as the Army and Navy were for the other two branches of the Women's Auxiliary Force. There was a good deal of friction over the whole of that area. Things were not going well. That also is common ground. If it is not common
ground, it is indisputable But the fact is that, after Miss Douglas Pennant had been superseded and certain changes in the organisation had been made, there was a swift and marked improvement all round in the condition of the Women's Royal Air Force, in the smooth working of the Air Ministry, and in the relations between the Air Ministry and the Ministry of National Service. That, again, I should suppose, was common ground. Of course, all these basic facts are capable of being viewed in perfectly different lights. The condition of affairs may have been bad! Miss Douglas Pennant was putting them right! There was friction in these efforts, but this was inseparable from her measures of reform.

An HON. MEMBER: Necessary!

Mr. CHURCHILL: The improvement which followed her departure was the results of the efforts she had made!

Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCK: I assert that plainly.

Mr. CHURCHILL: I know, and I am sure my Noble Friend would never bring forward a case of this kind unless he felt earnestly and even passionately the justice of it. I say all that is a perfectly conceivable hypothesis.

Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCK: It is not a hypothesis.

Mr. CHURCHILL: It is a perfectly conceivable reading of the facts. It is to my mind improbable. It is certainly not the view which Lord Weir took.

An HON. MEMBER: Lord Weir?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I am coming in a moment to deal with Lord Weir's credentials to express an opinion on this matter. After all, he has rights as well as Miss Douglas Pennant. Do not let us be earned away too much into accepting one view and assuming that every person who stands for anything in contra-distinction to that view is necessarily corrupt, malicious, incompetent, and unworthy. Certainly not. My right hon. Friend said if she had been a factory girl he would have defended her with every vigour. I am sure he would, but Lord Weir is a human being. He has a reputation to save. He is entitled to respect as well as anybody.

Mr. REMER: Is not Miss Douglas Pennant a human being?

Mr. CHURCHILL: Certainly, we are all human beings. [Laughter.] I gladly give that information. We are all human beings. [Hon. Members:" Hear, hear!"] Then let us all endeavour to keep good-humoured human beings. I say the view to which I have referred is what is sincerely held by a great many hon. Members on these benches. I do not reproach them for it in the least. It is a perfectly reasonable hypothesis. But Lord Weir took an exactly opposite view. He took the view that Miss Douglas Pennant, whatever her qualities and gifts might be, was not the best official to bring the Women's Royal Air Force into good order. He thought that her methods were not the best, and that her relations with her subordinates and other branches of the Ministry were an impediment to reform.

Colonel ASHLEY: Then why, if those are the right hon. Gentleman's views, did he, through the mouth of Sir Godfrey Paine four days before she was dismissed, ask her to stay on?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I am not in a position to state from day to day what Lord Weir's views on this subject may have been, but it does seem to me a perfectly comprehensible course of action that a Minister carrying on a great Department and having relations with high officials, man or woman, a high official of consequence, and engaged in measuring from day to day what is the best course and the best policy in the interests of the Department, may in the event of a great deal of friction uphold that official to a certain point, and then, on further information coming in, or on further consideration of the subject, decide that after all it is better to make a change. That happens even in political circles. Ministers are held up to a certain point, and I have seen, even in my brief experience, that further information comes to hand and a, change is made.

Sir R. THOMAS: Was not the right hon. Gentleman superseded, and not summarily dismissed? I think he would object to that.

Mr. CHURCHILL: I have experienced both. I do feel that it is a perfectly reasonable assumption that Lord Weir found himself confronted with a succession of difficulties, people complaining, and so forth, and he supported those people until at last he said, "I shall not support them any more, and I am going to make a change." That may have been a harsh
decision, but it is a perfectly reasonable and comprehensible one in time of peace or in time of war. Lord Weir, after informing himself personally, as he was bound to do in an important matter like this, through every channel he could, decided that Miss Douglas Pennant should be superseded. He did that in the interests of the Women's Royal Air Force, and he put somebody in her place in order that the interests of the force might be advanced, and that we might get on with the War as quickly as we could. That is the view Lord Weir took. It is most important that the Committee, at the outset of this Parliament, should proceed on sound principles in regard to these cases, which are so very numerous.
Lord Weir was the person responsible. He was the man who ought to decide, had a right to decide, in fact it was his duty to decide, and he was bound to do what he thought was right and best at the time in the interests of the force. He had no choice except to do his duty according to his lights, and if he had shrunk from this duty, however unpleasant; if he had shrunk from doing his duty in respect of a person serving in a high station under him, he would have been guilty of cowardice, which would have been reprehensible in a time of peace and even criminal in time of war. If he honestly formed the opinion that she was not the best person to hold that appointment, it was his duty to move her and to put someone else in her place. That, I think, must really be accepted by the House, and I do not gather that it is challenged. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] I know that I am dealing with Members who if they differ from me are very fair in controversy and face a reasonable and logical fact, and I submit that there is nothing that is false in my argument. I say that the discretion rested with him, and that it was complete and final. It makes no difference to the argument whether Lord Weir's exercise of this discretion was right or wrong. Everyone may make mistakes. War itself is a mistake. All war at every stage is full of mistakes, errors, blunders, disasters, uncertainties, maiming one and making another rich. Personally, I think that Lord Weir was right in this matter on the merits, and my right hon. Friend the Minister of National Service, who was acquainted with all that took place, thoroughly concurred at the time in Lord Weir's action, and thought that it was necessary in the interests of the Women's Royal Air Force.
But whether the exercise of Lord Weir's discretion was wise or mistaken is not vital to the issue—indeed, I believe I may justly say that it is irrelevant to the issue which is now before the House. We cannot possibly re-try the exercise of Lord Weir's discretion. We cannot at the end of so many months recreate and reconstruct all that set of circumstances which existed in the Women's Royal Air Force in July and August of last year. No tribunal which you could set up could possibly sit in judgment upon the exercise of Lord Weir's discretion. A rambling, roving inquiry into all the circumstances, into all the personal disputes and differences which prevailed in this Department at that time among people, all of whom were probably doing their very best according to their lights to help their country, and who were all working under circumstances of great strain—a rambling, roving inquiry of that kind could not possibly arrive at any conclusion comparable in authority with the decision taken at the time in the public interest by the responsible Minister. Personally, I could not take the responsibility of advising the House to institute such an inquiry. I am not, nor is my right hon. Friend here, concerned personally in these events, but I have had nearly fourteen years' experience of the public service, and I cannot conceive anything more futile or anything more unsatisfactory than an inquiry of this kind into the circumstances prevailing in the Women's Royal Air Force, and the relations of those circumstances to Miss Douglas Pennant's supercession. I say that you will get no result of any kind which is of real value or guidance or of utility to the public service. I do not see how anyone can possibly get round the fact that it was a matter for Lord Weir to settle whether Miss Douglas Pennant should stay or go, and he decided that she should go. That is the first ground of principle, that it rested in the discretion of the Minister responsible.
10.0 P.M.
The second point by which the House should test this question is this: Is there any reason to suppose that this discretion was corruptly or maliciously exercised? If there is, let us have an inquiry by all means, however long, and let us have out the facts and do justice and mete censure and punishment to those responsible. Of course, if it is alleged that Lord
Weir's decision was not an honest one, and that the exercise of his discretion was malicious or corrupt, or if it is alleged that those persons whose duty it was to advise him on this matter, brought untruthful statements to his notice, and misled him, and exercised undue influence on him, and perverted his judgment so that it was a corrupt and malicious judgment, that is an entirely different matter, and not for one moment would I obstruct or resist an inquiry into that, and if the case is such as primâ facie would commend itself to reasonable people, the Government will be delighted to facilitate the trying and testing of that matter to the full. But does anyone in any quarter of the House, does anyone anywhere here, even the most convinced supporter of Miss Douglas Pennant, make such an allegation as that against Lord Weir, and is he prepared to prefer and substantiate a charge of that kind? I pause for a reply to the question I have asked.

Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCK: I do assert most confidently that Miss Pennant was the victim of a corrupt intrigue by men who were obstructing her in the performance of her duty and in her efforts to make the Air Force efficient, and that Lord Weir, instead of supporting her, threw his influence on the Bide of the people who obstructed her. Will you kindly give an inquiry into that now or not?

Mr. CHURCHILL: My Noble Friend has, instead of answering the precise question [An Hon. Member: "Shuffling!"] If we are to use an expression of that kind it might have been very ready to my tongue, in view of the lengthy answer which my Noble Friend gave to the perfectly precise question which I put. Is he prepared to give the circumstances of the allegation of malice and corruption against Lord Weir?

Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCK: Or his associates?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I am in possession of the Committee, and I submit I am entitled to an answer from my Noble Friend—

An HON. MEMBER: That is begging the question.

Mr. THOMAS: No one has made that charge against Lord Weir. The charge
that is made is that those responsible for advising Lord Weir were influenced by corrupt motives.

Mr. CHURCHILL: Who?

Mr. THOMAS: As to the question "Who?" we say the inquiry must find that out.

Mr. CHURCHILL: Now I have got an answer to my question. There is no charge. The right hon. Gentleman, with more readiness than my Noble Friend, has answered directly and plainly. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh, Oh!"]

Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCK: I submit what I stated is ground for an inquiry.

Mr. CHURCHILL: The Noble Lord did not answer the question I put, but the right hon. Gentleman opposite did. He said he made no such charge of malice and corruption against Lord Weir, but he said there were people whose duty it was to advise him had advised him with malicious and corrupt motives. I imagine the Noble Lord associates himself with them, but who were they?

Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCK: That is why we want an inquiry.

Mr. CHURCHILL: I say no. Here is a Debate which has occupied the attention of the House of Commons and the Committee. We are all gathered together. I am asked to give an inquiry and no name is mentioned by those who put forward this demand as the person who is accused of malice or corruption in this matter.

Mr. THOMAS: Then will the right hon. Gentleman tell us who advised Lord Weir?

Mr. H. SMITH: If the names are forthcoming will the right hon. Gentleman undertake to grant an inquiry?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I have said—[Hon. Members: "Oh, oh!"]It is very difficult, and it is disorderly to greet with this sort of boos and groans, which we are accustomed to listen to in some political meetings, those who have the honour to address the Committee, even if they happen to be Ministers. I speak entirely from my own point of view. If a primâ facie case of malice or corruption is deployed by responsible people against any person concerned in this matter, and a definite charge is made against a named
person, we will have the matter thoroughly investigated and sifted. But when I see these benches crowded and not a Member will rise in his place to state a charge against any person mentioned by name, I say, no, let us get a little further before we commit ourselves to an inquiry. Let us know the accusation. Let us know what the crime is, who the criminal is, and who is the accused person against whom that crime is brought. I should like to say, in support of what my right hon. Friend said, a word about Lord Weir. The charge of malice or corruption against Lord Weir is dropped. I do not wonder at it. [Hon. Members: "It was never made!"]Then the only suggestion is that he is so simple-minded that he was twisted away from the facts by any person who had low motives, and that his judgment was perverted. You could not possibly find a more disinterested Minister than Lord Weir or a man more exclusively devoted to the prosecution of the War. He left his business and he worked in the Ministry of Munitions for a long time. He directed so much energy and attention to his work and his proved capabilities and industry were such that he was chosen to be the head of the Aeronautical Production Department, and in that position he raised at any rate the whole production of aeroplanes in this country until it reached an enormous pitch. From that post he went to be Secretary of State for Air. He was selected by the Prime Minister. I venture to say it was an appointment thoroughly concurred in by the public, by Parliament, and by the Press. It was universally accepted. The collapse of the enemy alone prevented the full results of Lord Weir's administration of the Royal Air Force from being apparent in this present year, 1919.
The moment the War was over, what did Lord Weir do? He wanted to go back to his business. He would not stay in office. He had no further interest in public life, and would not seek political advancement or advantage of any kind. All that he desired was to take his part in the War, and when his work was done to go back to Glasgow. He went back to Glasgow. A man like that is entitled to credence and confidence in the exercise of his legitimate function. I say it would be wrong for the House of Commons to challenge the legitimate exercise of his discretionary power. I cannot conceive what interest he had except in coming to a right decision. I
should like to point out that this is a matter which he gave his closest personal attention to. He did not merely sign, like is sometimes done, a document put up to him by an official subordinate; he went through the whole of the case himself, with all the facts at his disposal, and he did the best that could be done to get round the immediate difficulty with which he was confronted. Lord Weir takes the fullest responsibility for what he has done, and I must say I should feel the very gravest doubts, if I were not acquainted with all the facts, of the wisdom of challenging this use of discretionary power by a Minister of this character. But I feel still more the absurdity as I know—I have had an opportunity of reading the papers on the case, and I know the very slight pretexts which are advanced—that the House should practically wish to carry a vote of censure of Lord Weir for his conduct in the case.
I thought it right to ask Lord Weir to express his views on this question in view of the Debate. I received this letter from him, and, with the permission of the Committee, I should like to read it:
My dear Churchill,—I have received from Sir Arthur Robinson your Minute of the 7th March, asking for my views and attitude with regard to Miss Douglas Pennant.
I have gone carefully over the case, so far as my recollection stands, and with the documents in front of me, and I cannot see anything to cause me to regard my letter of the 4th December to the Prime Minister as not covering the entire situation.
There is one point which might be made clearer in view of the discussion in the House of Lords. General Brancker had practically nothing to do with Miss Pennant's supersession other than as my instrument in informing her of our decision to replace her. His opinion was not asked, as he had only just taken up his position, and any belief that General Brancker brought about the supersession is unfounded.
If Sir Godfrey Paine had still been in office my decision would have been the same, but General Paine would have drawn my attention to his verbal promise of the further months' trial which has been referred to and as regards which I have expressed my regret.
General Brancker simply did what he was told, although I am, of course, not aware of the exact wording of his statement to Miss Pennant.
I wish to make it quite clear that I was in every way personally responsible for this decision to supersede Miss Pennant, and the whole circumstances are given in my letter of the 4th December. I utterly fail to see what more there is to inquire into. An inquiry into the conditions of the Women's Royal Air Force at the time would only show that it was not going well. It might even possibly show that Miss Pennant had been doing good work, but that would not alter the facts, which are that, rightly
or wrongly, I came to the conclusion that she was not the right woman to pull the show round quickly, and accordingly she was superseded. I cannot see any mystery about that.
I am very sorry indeed that you should be worried with this legacy, but speaking very frankly, I feel that I did the right thing for the Air Force, and I would do the same to-morrow in the same circumstances, with the single exception that I would have expressed my regret to Miss Pennant at breaking the verbal arrangement which Sir Godfrey Paine proposed as regards the month. In regard to this, I have already expressed my regret at my omission.
I do ask the House to support the Government in the position we take up. There are thousands of cases, as my right hon. Friend (Major-General Seely) has said, where people in this War have left the public service or have been removed from their appointments with a feeling of intolerable injustice, and I have no doubt, ill a very large number of these cases, if all the circumstances could be reviewed before some supreme, august tribunal, and if all the facts at the time had been known, it would be admitted that they had had very hard treatment and very painful usage. But we had to get on with the War. Generals of division, generals of army corps, and generals of armies, have been told to go at ten minutes' notice out of their command. Their successors have arrived, and they have walked out, without power, at that short hint. We were always in the presence of the enemy. The right hon. Baronet tried to draw a distinction between what was going on hero and, we will say, at headquarters in France and at the Dardanelles. The need of organising this Women's Air Force in a satisfactory manner was a vital operation of war at a time when we were short of men and it had to be dealt with as if it was a rough, hard, crude operation of war. There is no charge of any kind whatever against Miss Douglas Pennant. Every possible compliment had been paid to her character and to her capacity. Nothing has happened and nothing has been said on behalf of the Government that prevents her from being regarded in her proper sphere as a competent and capable administrator, and there is not the slightest reflection upon her character. There was no reason whatever why she should not resume her public work or should not now resume it. At that particular moment she had, in the opinion of the sole man whose duty it was to judge for the time being, lost her usefulness in that sphere of the public service. On the other hand, I cannot, on
behalf of the Government, agree to any inquiry except within the limits and under the conditions which I have specified, namely, that definite charges of malice and corruption are brought on reasonable grounds against named persons who take real responsibility for her supersession.

Mr. THOMAS: If the right hon. Gentleman has the Report of the hon. Member (Mr. Harmsworth) can the House have that Report?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I cannot say anything, but I will inquire. I have read the Report and I do not, myself, see any reason from the point of view of the Government, but it is a private and confidential Report made to the Prime Minister, and I cannot say anything without an opportunity of finding out what the Prime Minister says. That Report recommended that there should be a judicial inquiry, but the Prime Minister, after hearing what Lord Weir had to say about it in his letter of 4th December, decided that it was not right or necessary to press the inquiry, and he accepted the views put forward by the Secretary of State for the Royal Air Force. That is the position, but without making any pledge on the subject I should be quite ready to inquire of the Prime Minister whether he would allow a document, essentially of a private nature, only written to oblige him personally in the course of his public work, to be published.

Amendment negatived.

Original question put, and agreed to.

Orders of the Day — VOTE ON ACCOUNT.

Resolved,

"That a sum, not exceeding £45,000,000, be granted to His Majesty, on Account, for or towards defraying the Charges for Air Force Services at Home and abroad, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1920."

Resolutions to be reported To-morrow; Committee to sit again To-morrow.

Orders of the Day — WAYS AND MEANS.

Considered in. Committee.

[Mr. WHITLEY in the Chair.]

Resolved,

"That towards making good the Supply granted to His Majesty for the Service of the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1919, the sum of £1,133,852 be granted out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom."—[Lord Edmund Talbot.]

Resolved,

"That towards making good the Supply granted to His Majesty for the Service of the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1920, the sum of £440,310,000 be granted out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom."—[Lord Edmund Talbot.]

Resolutions to be reported To-morrow; Committee to sit again To-morrow.

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

Whereupon Mr. SPEAKER, pursuant to the Order of the House of the 12th February, proposed the Question, "That this House do now adjourn."

Question put, and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at Twenty-three minutes after Ten o'clock.